The Baby
by LanceIsHot
Summary: Jamie has always been picked on for being the baby of the institute, but when he gets really sick, the others realize how much they need there 'little brother' in the family. Now finished!
1. The first day

"Get your butt out of bed now bub, you got a training session in the danger room," said a gruff voice, waking Jamie up.  
  
"Great," he grumbled. "Some kids my age get a 'good morning, oh, you need to get up now,' I get Wolverine." He sat up in his bed, wondering slightly on why his arm was hurting so much, but he brushed it off, thinking that he had slept on it wrong.  
  
"Hey shrimp, it's your turn to wake Tabitha," Bobby said, sticking his head through the open door.  
  
Jamie groaned again. Tabitha duty. Every 8 days, he was stuck with trying to get their resident wacko to wake up. Not only was it difficult, it was slightly dangerous. Just yesterday, Ray got his favorite shirt blown up when he tried pulling Tabitha out of her bed.  
  
Jamie quickly got dressed, ran his fingers through his hair, knowing that someone would yell at him for not actually brushing it, and walked into Tabitha's room.  
  
"Tabitha, wake up," he said quietly, knowing she wouldn't hear him. She didn't, and kept on snoring. "Tabitha," he said, a little louder. "Wake up Tabitha." He poked her a few times, seeing if that would help any.  
  
It didn't.  
  
Or maybe it did, it depends on how you view being thrown on the ground with three little cherry bombs in your face.  
  
"Uh, hi Tabitha," Jamie gulped, hoping that he wouldn't get blown up.  
  
"Jamie, what are you doing in here? And why the heck are you trying to wake me up?" Tabitha asked, crawling back under the covers as she spoke.  
  
"It's my turn to wake you up," Jamie told her. "And we have to be in the danger room in 20 minutes. And remember, Mr. Logan said that if any of us are late, we all get the early sessions for another week."  
  
Tabitha snorted. "Yeah, like Badger would really ground all of you because I'm a minute late."  
  
"He did last month, remember? You were late, and we all had to wash the X- van and all that stuff."  
  
Tabitha thought for a moment, trying to remember which time of probation he was talking about. "Oh yeah, and I said I was sick, and got out of it 'cause Baldy wasn't there to say I was lying. Yeah, okay, so Badger is crazy enough to do it, but come on kid, I want to go back to sleep," Tabitha said, closing her eyes.  
  
Jamie knew he was about to lose her. So he did the thing any normal 12-year- old would do-start jumping on the bed.  
  
"Tabitha come on, if I have to get up, you have to get up," Jamie said, making more multiples appear, which added to the noise.  
  
"You've got to get up."  
  
"I don't want to clean."  
  
"Get up you lazy bum," said one rather brave multiple.  
  
"My arm hurts," said the original Jamie, holding his arm.  
  
"Ah, come on Jamie, I know you want to get out of class, but Badger won't let you out of it," Tabitha said, pushing the multiples off the bed.  
  
"No, it really hurts," Jamie said, reabsorbing the multiples, and left the room.  
  
He decided that he would eat breakfast now, even though it was only 5:30, because he would probably want to go to bed after the danger room session. He couldn't think of anything that he had to do, and since it was summer, Miss Monroe couldn't nag him about doing homework.  
  
As he got down to the kitchen, he saw that every new recruit besides Tabitha, and Scott and Jean were down there.  
  
'Great,' he thought, 'fighting over breakfast, just what I want at 5:30 in the freaking morning.' Jean gave him an odd glance, obviously overhearing what he thought. He ignored her, and started towards the cupboard.  
  
He opened it up and looked inside. Awesome, there were cookies right at the top shelf. All he had to do was reach up...dang it; he was still too short to reach them. Sam happened to be watching him and laughed. He casually reached up, grabbed the cookies, and tossed them to Roberto, who, in turn, tossed them to Bobby.  
  
The recruits were having a wonderful time playing keep away from Jamie, when Jean telepathically lifted them up over the fridge. Jamie sighed, a perfect bag of cookies, mentally taken away. What a way to start the day.  
  
It just got worse as the morning went on. Bobby tripped him, and he landed hard on his arm, making three multiples appear, Ray had 'accidentally' spilled his orange juice all over him, and Tabitha, when she finally came down, who was still kind of peeved at being woken up, put a bomb in his cereal. And to top it all off- his arm was hurting really badly.  
  
He really wasn't looking forward to the session, but he lucked out. It was a target practice, and since he didn't have any shooting powers, he just had to watch. And laugh as one of the things that Bobby was supposed to hit flew at him, and hit him on the head, sending him to the infirmary. He stopped laughing when Bobby glared at him. The other recruits were really mad about Jamie getting out of the session, when they all had to work. Jamie knew he would probably get locked in a closest or something later for not having to work, but he figured he'd worry about that later.  
  
After the session, Jamie went to Hank about his arm, which was really starting to bug him.  
  
"Mr. McCoy?" Jamie asked, trying to get his attention away from book he was reading.  
  
"Yes, Jamie," Hank said, rather annoyed at being interrupted.  
  
"My arm really hurts, and I don't know why," Jamie said, puling up his sleeve to show Hank.  
  
"Hmm," Hank said, "it is rather swollen, did you do anything to it?"  
  
"No, well, Bobby knocked me over today, but...no, it was hurting when I woke up, I don't think I hurt it yesterday," Jamie said, confused on why his arm was hurting when he did nothing to it.  
  
"Well, let's go down to the infirmary and check it out," Hank told him.  
  
When they got there, Hank took Jamie's blood pressure his temperature, which Jamie didn't understand. His arm was hurting- why did he need his temperature checked?  
  
"Your temperatures really high, it's almost 102 degrees," Hank said.  
  
"Why do I have a fever? It's just my arm," Jamie asked.  
  
"Well, there's a few things that could of caused it," Hank said, looking over some papers in a notebook. "Why don't you wait here while I check with the Professor?"  
  
Jamie sat on one of the hospital beds, kicking his legs over the edge, staring at Bobby, who was still in there after his incident in the Danger room.  
  
"What are you staring at shrimp?" He asked, noticing that Jamie was staring at him.  
  
"Nothing," Jamie said quickly, not wanting to talk back to the older mutant. He had learned from experience, it was not smart to insult or backtalk to the other mutants. It resulted in having pranks pulled on him, or junk poured on him.  
  
When he had turned the danger room on a high level on Bobby, Ray, Sam, and Jubilee, the next day they had locked him in there for an hour and a half. He had so many bruises from it, he jumped off the stairs, so none of the teachers would find out. He definitely didn't want to go through that again.  
  
He glared at Bobby, hoping he wouldn't notice, and at the same time, hoping he would. He was so sick of being pushed around, and picked on when he was smaller. His anger quickly died when Bobby turned and glared at him, and Jamie decided now would be a great time to look somewhere else.  
  
"Jamie, I think I have some bad news," Hank said, walking back in.  
  
"What's wrong? Jamie asked.  
  
"Well, the professor and I think it would be best if we took you to the Emergency room," Hank told him.  
  
"What?" Jamie yelled. "I don't want to go there. Can't you just put a cast on it?"  
  
"Jamie," Hank explained, "we don't think it's a broken arm. The Professor thinks it's something called Osteo Myolitis."  
  
Jamie stared at him blankly. "What?"  
  
"Is that bad?" Bobby butted in.  
  
"Um, well, it could be," Hank said, obviously worried about how bad it could be.  
  
"How bad could it be?" Jamie asked. "We're not talking death-like bad? Are we?"  
  
"Well, I think it's a little too early to be talking like that. I think there have only been a few death cases," Hank said.  
  
Jamie got kind of scared, and fell off of the bed, causing three multiples to appear. They started running around the room screaming.  
  
"Oh my gosh, we're gonna die!"  
  
"I'm too cute to die!"  
  
"What are we going to do?"  
  
"Jamie, calm down, it might not be bad at all," Hank said.  
  
Bobby, who didn't really understand most of what was going on, thanks to the lump on his head, only got that he had tripped Jamie, making him land on his arm, and now it might kill him.  
  
"Oh shoot," he said.

_K, I just wanted to let you know, what Jamie has is a real disease, one I never heard of before my sister got it, but it is real, and I'm only 15, so some of it is kind of over my head, so don't expect all this facny explanations on that deisease thing that I'm not going to attempt to try and spell again. K, R&R. Bye_


	2. The Hospital

_A/N Hi, well, here's chapter two, sorry it's not that long, but I've been kind of busy, but I really wanted to put the next chapter up. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed!  
  
Shadowed Smiles- K, I didn't actually get an idea to write Jamie from your story, in fact, when I saw it I was like, "oh sh," cuz I knew someone would think I was copying you, I was going 2 wait to write it, but I was really bored, so I decided not to. Oh, and about the whole Jamie screaming I'm to cute to die thing, I figured that he wasn't saying anything, so his multiples decided to let Hank know _exactly_ how he felt.  
  
And to everyone who said they hoped my sister was better, she says thanks. And she also says to quit writing and get on with the story...no, wait, that was for me. Yeah, I guess this note is getting rather long...  
  
Disclaimer-I own 2 X-men Puzzles and the toys from Burger King, does that count?  
  
_In the library, all the new recruits besides Bobby and Jamie had gathered to discuss what they heard. They knew that Jamie had done something to his arm, and he was going to the hospital, but they didn't know what caused it.  
  
"Bobby tripping him couldn't of hurt that much," Jubilee said, and the others nodded.  
  
"Well, then how did the little brat do it?" Ray asked.  
  
"Oh, come on," Tabitha said, "It's so obvious he's faking so he won't have to do a danger room session again."  
  
"Nah, Jamie wouldn't do that," Sam said.  
  
"Please, he always wants attention, and the others give it to him. This is just a way for Storm to buy him ice cream or something," Tabitha said.  
  
"I don't know Tabitha, with Beast in the Medical lab; wouldn't he know Jamie was faking?" Amara asked. "I mean, he's a really good doctor, he could tell if Jamie was lying."  
  
"Yeah, and the Professor could tell if he was lying," Rahne said. "He's a telepath; he probably read his mind before they took him to the hospital."  
  
"Okay, fine, if you want to believe the little baby, be my guest, for now, I've got some serious sleeping to catch up on," Tabitha said.  
  
"That was kind of harsh," Roberto said after she left.  
  
"Aw, she's just mad because Jamie woke her up this morning, she should be back to normal after a nap," Sam explained.  
  
"What if Jamie really is sick?" Amara asked.  
  
"Then he gets out of the danger room sessions," Ray said. "And we'll probably get blamed."  
  
"What do you mean?" Jubilee asked.  
  
"Oh, we'll probably get yelled at by Logan for playing all those pranks on him, you know, something like dumping orange juice on him is what caused it all," Ray said.  
  
"They wouldn't do that," Sam said. "They know we don't hurt him or anything, we can't get in trouble."  
  
"I don't know," Jubilee said. "When Logan gets worried, he usually yells at whoever he sees first."  
  
The other recruits ran from the library, headed towards their rooms. None of them wanted to be the first person Logan saw when he got home.  
  
In the Hospital  
  
Jamie had fallen asleep in the car on the way up, and he was still kind of sleepy. No, he was really sleepy. All he wanted was to curl up in bed.  
  
Hank had called one of his old doctor friends, so Jamie didn't have to wait long once he got there, but he didn't really notice.  
  
'I'm so hot', Jamie thought to himself. It was kind of hazy, and his eyes were burning. He shut them quickly, trying to ignore the talking that was going on in the background.  
  
"His arm is swollen, Nurse, take his temperature," the doctor said.  
  
'Why are they taking my temperature? I broke my arm, Bobby tripped me, remember?' Jamie tried asking the professor, who he knew was in the room, even though his eyes were still closed. 'Just put me in a cast, I want to go home. Home, I really miss home. I don't want to be in here.'  
  
Jamie was led out of the room he was in, and taken down to the labs. He didn't even really notice when they took blood from him, or looked at his arm, or took blood pressure.  
  
'When I get home,' he thought, 'I'm going to watch Aladdin with mom. Just like we used to, with a big bowl of popcorn and soda, just the two of us. And mom will stay with me this time, she won't leave, I know it.'  
  
"Take him into room 411," the doctor said, "I want an IV in him immediately."  
  
'IV? Doesn't that mean a shot? I don't want a shot, I want to go home!' He thought about struggling, but he was so tired, he didn't bother. They laid him in a bed, and he fell asleep, not even noticing when they put the needle in him.  
  
_Jaime was playing video games, like he always did, when Jubilee, Amara, Tabitha, and Rahne came in.  
  
"Hi girls," he said, "Want to play with me?"  
  
"Sure Jamie, you know how much we love playing with you," Amara said.  
  
"Yeah, and don't forget about us," Ray said, walking in with Bobby, Roberto and Sam.  
  
They all grabbed a controller, and Jamie was so happy that they were playing with him, and not being mean, that he didn't even notice that the game they were playing was a one player.  
  
"Jamie," Rahne said, "wake up."  
  
Huh? Why was Rahne telling him to wake up? He was awake. He ignored the voice, and kept playing games.  
  
"Oh my gosh," Amara said, "he's not waking up, he's dead!"  
  
Dead? What was she talking about? All this was making him lose the game. The recreation room started to get blurry, and he started to wake up.  
  
_"Oh man, he's dead!"  
  
"I didn't do it."  
  
"Of course you didn't, Bobby, he's not dead, he's merely asleep," the Professor explained.  
  
"Then why isn't he waking up?" Sam asked.  
  
"Because I was having a great dream, which you guys ruined," Jamie said, opening his eyes, and looking around. "Where am I?"  
  
The Professor chuckled. "You're in the hospital, Jamie, and you have been for a few hours. You've been asleep for quite awhile."  
  
"The doctor said your fever was 104 degrees!" Amara said.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Jubilee asked.  
  
"My arm still hurts..."Jamie stared, and looked at his arm. There was a needle in it, which was attached to a tube that led to a bag that was dripping liquid. "What's that?" he asked.  
  
"That's your IV, it's putting antibiotics into you, which will help fight off the disease," the professor explained. "Now, students, you've seen Jamie, and have confirmed the fact that he is indeed, not dead, Jamie needs to rest some more."  
  
"But don't worry," Logan said, and Jamie looked around the room, looking for him. He was in the corner, reading the newspaper. "Until the shrimp is outta here, someone's going to be with him at all times, so you'll get a lot of quality time with him."  
  
"But it's summer!" Bobby said, "I don't want to baby-sit the twerp."  
  
"Sorry Popsicle," Logan said, "but you're stuck with it."  
  
The recruits groaned, each thinking about what their summer would be like stuck in a hospital.  
  
"How about we make a deal," the professor said. "When one of you recruits spends four hours here, you can skip one session with Logan."  
  
They thought about this for a second, deciding if spending four hours in a hospital was worth missing class with Logan.  
  
Come on, they're not stupid.  
  
"I get to go first!" They all shouted at once. 


	3. 4 hour shifts the first day

_A/N Hi again. Sorry this took so long to get out; I've been kind of busy. Hope you like this chapter. Thanks to Rogue14, hollypotter5253, xmengirlzrule, and ldypebsaby (hope I spelled it right) for reviewing both chapters. And hollypotter5253, I'm not sure if I'll put Rogue in this fic, at least not yet, I want to work with the new recruits first, but thanks for the idea, I'll think about it. Now, on with the story!_

=============================================================

Jamie lay in his hospital bed, patiently waiting for his first visitor to come. His right arm was in a cast, and his left arm had an IV in it, and he couldn't move without it hurting. He tried watching TV, but it only had about 7 channels.

"News." (Click) "Spanish." (Click) "More Spanish." (Click). "Grr...even more Spanish. Multiple," he said, kicking one leg into the other. "I want you to go to the institute, and learn Spanish. Okay?" The multiple nodded obediently, normally, he wouldn't listen, but he also wanted to know what the heck the people on the TV were saying. It was rather annoying not knowing. They could be insulting him for all he knew.

"Ah, cartoons," Jamie said, finally finding a channel with his beloved cartoons. It took a few seconds before, "No! It's in Spanish too!"

After deciding he was cursed to only watch Spanish shows, he took a nap. He never was able to sleep in the middle of the day, even as a little kid, and he marveled at the fact that he was able to fall asleep so easily.

"This is pretty nice," he said to himself, wondering if he could make Logan have naptime an official part of the day.

"Hey, Shrimp," a voice said from the doorway. Jamie groaned; his first four hours would be spent with the blonde lunatic Tabitha.

"So, anything on TV?" she asked, plopping down on one pf the chairs, and putting her feet on his bed.

"Yeah, if you speak Spanish," he replied bitterly, kind of upset at being woken up from his nap.

"Well, you're lucky," Tabitha said, "I brought a ton of movies for you to watch."

She pulled out movies like "The Blair Witch Project," "Terminator," "Feardot Com," "My Cousin Vinnie," and a few movies that Jamie had never even heard of. Looking closely at the backs of the movies, he noticed a common theme between them all.

"Uh...Tabitha? These are all rated "R."

"Yeah, so?" She asked, starting to put one of them in.

"You know I'm only 12, right? And that the Professor said I'm not allowed to watch R rated movies. Hey, he said you weren't allowed to either," Jamie said.

"So? Do you see him now? He's not here, and what he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?" She said, sitting back down now that the movie was starting. "Now be quiet, I like the beginning."

Jamie decided that now would be a great time for a nap, mainly so that he could say he didn't watch anything bad if Logan ever found out.

After two hours, lunch came, and since Jamie couldn't use his hands, Tabitha had to feed him.

"Okay Jamie," Tabitha said, holding a spoonful of peas, trying to pry Jamie's mouth open, "open the tunnel for the train." It turns out, Tabitha isn't the ideal person you want feeding you. If it was something Jamie didn't like, she would force his mouth open.

If it was something he did like, she would hold it right in front of his mouth, and rip it away when it got near his mouth. After twenty minutes of this, Tabitha got bored, and decided to just feed him normally. Of course, by then, all his food was cold, so all the normally awful food was ten times worse.

=================================================================

After Tabitha's four hours were up, Amara and Jubilee came to relieve her.

It had only been about five minutes when the two girls decided that talking to Jamie was no fun, and decided to ignore him the rest of the time. They talked about shopping, and clothes, and cute boys, and anything else normal teenage girls talk about. Unfortunately, since Jamie was a 12 year old boy, none of it meant anything to him.

"Did you happen to bring any movies?" Jamie asked after a while.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about those," Amara said, pulling out a stack full of movies. The two girls went back to talking.

"Uhh...can you put one of them in for me?" Jamie asked, pointing to the TV.

"Sure Jamie, why didn't you just say so?" Jubilee asked, putting in one of the movies.

Sadly, Amara and Jubilee were as bad at picking out movies as Tabitha.

"Pinocchio? Come on, tell me you brought something besides Pinocchio," Jamie whined.

"Well, we brought the 'Emperors New Groove.' Does that meet up with his highnesses wishes?" Jubilee asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, fine, put it in," Jamie said irritably. He really hoped the next few hours wouldn't be as bad as the last.

================================================================

After awhile, Roberto came in.

"Okay girls, your shifts up, my turn," he said, kicking the two girls out of the room.

"Please tell me you brought something good to do," Jamie said, trying to see into the bag Roberto was carrying.

"I brought a few board games," Roberto said. "Do you like Scrabble?"

"Roberto, my arms are either in a cast or hooked up to an IV, how can I move the pieces, and second of all, I'm still kind of drugged up, they keep giving me medicine's, I'm not thinking exactly straight.

"Okay... so I guess you don't want to play Clue or Monopoly, huh?"

Since Roberto didn't bring any movies, they were forced to talk. After five minutes, they ran out of things to talk about.

After 15 minutes, Roberto fell asleep in his chair. Shortly after, Jamie fell asleep.

After an hour, they had both woken up.

Within ten minutes, they had run out of things to talk about again.

Roberto tried telling Jamie about school, but since Jamie was home schooled, he didn't really care much for it.

Jamie tried telling Roberto about some of the pranks he would pull when he got better, but since Roberto was usually the butt end of most of the pranks, what with his huge ego, Jamie didn't want to let too much out, and stopped after a few minutes.

"So..."Roberto started, desperately trying to think of something to talk about. "Did you see Kitty's face last week when Bobby stole all of her underwear?"

"That was Bobby?" Jamie asked. "I thought she had broken up with Lance, and he got Pietro to do it or something."

They had finally found something to talk about. Funny how talking about other people's pranks could bring out the friends in two semi-enemies.

================================================================

Bobby was next in the group of visitors. No one had actually told him that it wasn't his fault that Jamie was sick, and he was still kind of worried that Jamie would be mad at him.

He spent the first half hour apologizing for every bad thing he did, every rumor he had spread, every prank he had pulled on him. Jamie was slightly surprised; he didn't know half the stuff Bobby had done to him, and a lot he blamed on the other new recruits.

"Okay, Bobby, shut up," Jamie said after awhile. He didn't really want to hear about what happened behind his back. It was kind of sad, thinking about all the mean things the other recruits had either done or were planning.

"Okay Jamie, but I just wanted to let you know, from now on, no more pranks, or tricks, or anything like that," Bobby promised.

Jamie laughed slightly. Guilt was a wonderful thing, to bad once Bobby found out that it wasn't his fault that Jamie was sick, or that Jamie wasn't going to die, he would suddenly "forget" his promise to Jamie.

"Sure Bobby," he said. "Did you bring anything to do.?"

"Well, I was going to bring you a coloring book and crayons, but I didn't want to go to a store and buy one, so I settled on cards. Do you know how to play BS?" Bobby asked, pulling out a deck of cards.

"Isn't that for three people?" Jamie asked, studying his hands, wondering if he could play cards in his current condition.

"Oh yeah, I forgot. Hey, I've got an idea," Bobby said, reaching for the phone on the drawer next to Jamie's bed. "We'll call everyone down and throw a party."

Since Bobby had already called everybody, and he looked so happy about making things up for Jamie that he decided to not tell him that there wasn't really supposed to be more than two visitors at a time. They had gotten away with it the first day, but he doubted the nurses would be so kind now that they had to come in every two hours to take his vitals and a blood test.

All of the new recruits had settled down on or around Jamie's bed, playing BS. Rahne, who wasn't really that good at the game, had decided to play as Jamie's partner, putting down cards when he told her to. It turns out she was a great liar, and they won most of the games.

"Okay, two... shoot, Jamie, what are these supposed to be again?" She dropped her voice down to a slight whisper, knowing the others could hear her.

"Jack's," Jamie whispered back, hiding his grin from the recruits.

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Rahne declared proudly. "Two Jacks."

"BS!" Nearly everyone else yelled.

Rahne and Jamie smirked, turning over the card, revealing that they were actually two Jacks.

"Weren't you raised by a priest?" Tabitha asked sourly, after picking up yet another stack of cards when she had fallen for the redhead's lie.

"Oh, this is just for fun," Rahne laughed, "I don't really lie...a lot."

"I'm getting bored of this game, let's play Poker," Ray said.

"Strip poker or regular?" Bobby asked.

"Hello, I'm only wearing a hospital gown and underwear, I don't want to play Poker," Jamie said.

"Yeah and we don't have any chips," Sam pointed out.

"Anything else we could play?" Jubilee asked.

"I think it's time you all go home," a voice said from the doorway. The recruits looked up to see Ororo and Logan walking into the room.

"We could hear you twerps from the elevator, and it won't be too long before we start hearing complaints," Logan said.

"Okay," Rahne said, standing up from the bed. "I'm tired, it's already 10:30, and I have first shift with Jamie here," a pause so she could ruffle his hair, "who's driving home?"

"I'll drive!" A voice called from the hallway. Kitty walked in the doorway, swirling a key ring around her finger.

"When did you get here?" Jamie asked.

"I came with Mr. Logan and Miss Monroe," she replied. "I know hospital food is really yucky, so I decided to make you some muffins."

Jamie groaned slightly. It was true that the food from the hospital sucked, and he had barely eaten anything, but one of Kitty's muffins was like a death sentence.

"I'll save them for later, okay?" Jamie asked, silently reminding himself to throw them away the second she left.

"Well, okay," Kitty said, obviously upset that she wouldn't be there to see him enjoy her muffins.

"Let's go you guys," Bobby said, and they said there goodbye's to Jamie, and left, leaving him with Ororo and Logan.

"Well Jamie, did you have fun today?" Ororo asked, cleaning up the mess the recruits had left behind.

"It was...interesting," Jamie said, trying to think of a better word to describe it. "It was kind of tiring to," proving his point; he curled up in a ball and fell asleep.

"Yeah," Logan snorted, "must be exhausting lying in bed all day." Ororo glared at him slightly, but he ignored her, looking through the video collection in one of the drawers.

"Ugh, Disney movies, didn't he watch anything good today?" He asked under his breath when he saw the movies underneath the kid shows. "Hey! These are mine? Who stole my videos?"

Sniffing the tape slightly, he growled. "Tabitha... she is dead meat."


	4. S'mores and ice scupltures

Four days passed slowly for Jamie, he didn't have much to do. Sure, the new recruits were there to help, but most of them were only there for the 'get-out-of-the-danger-room' ticket, than spending time with the younger mutant. From what he had heard, none of the recruits had done a session since he got admitted. Logan was so bored, that the older mutants were having a ton of extra sessions, and were now begging to spend the four hours with Jamie.

Ororo and Logan were with him, watching movies, when a doctor came in.

"Hello, Jamie," she said, shaking his hand. "Your normal doctor called in sick today, so I'm here to tell you that once we get a pick-line in you, you can go home."

"Cool," Jamie said, he was ready to go home. "Wait, what's a pick-line?"

"It's an IV, which gets inserted in here," she pointed to the inside of his elbow (A/N, what's that thing called?), "and goes through the rest of your arm, and drops right over your heart." She traced the outline on him.

"Is it gonna hurt?" Jamie asked.

"A little bit, at first, but after a while, you probably won't even be able to notice it," the doctor replied. "In a few minutes one of the pick-line nurses will come up to put it in, and then you can go home."

She gestured Ororo and Logan to come outside with her.

"You do realize that this is probably going to ruin the rest of his summer, right?" She asked, once she was sure Jamie couldn't hear.

"What do you mean?" Ororo asked.

"When the pick-line is inserted, the medicine will start from a fanny pack, which he'll have to wear all the time. His right arm is still in a cast, and his left arm won't really be able to be used, which means he won't really be able to do anything," the doctor explained.

"Oh, the kid's are gonna love that," Logan said.

"He probably won't even be able to do things like go to the bathroom or take a shower by himself, so he's going to need a lot of help," the doctor explained.

"We understand," Ororo said.

"Okay, just so you know," the doctor left, leaving Ororo and Logan to imagine what the next few weeks would be like.

(!)  
A few days later

(!)

Jamie was lying down in bed, wondering what the difference was between here and the hospital. It was just as boring, and there was still nothing to do. Well- there was one thing to do.

"RAY!" Jamie yelled at the top of his lungs.

"What?" Ray said, as he came in.

"I'm kind of thirsty; can you get me some water?" Jamie asked.

"I just got you some water an hour ago," Ray said.

"But I'm thirsty again," Jamie whined.

"Fine, I'll get you your stupid water." Ray stormed out of the room.

'Oh yes,' Jamie thought, 'this was way better than the hospital.

(!)

(!)

The next few days passed pretty much the same, with Jamie yelling for every single thing he could think of, and the recruits getting more and more upset.

"Tabby, can you get me some gum," Jamie asked.

"Why do you want gum? I just brought you lunch," she said.

"I'm not eating that, it looks like Kitty cooked it," Jamie said.

"I made it," Tabby protested, "and you're going to eat every bite you little twerp." She was getting annoyed real quickly by the miniature slave driver.

"JJEEAAANNN!" Jamie yelled. Jean came rushing into the room and Jamie said, "Tabby was threatening me."

"What? No I wasn't. I just said that you should eat your lunch, the one that I spent a half hour on, trying to get all your favorites," Tabitha said, trying not to lose her temper.

"Um, how about I take over watching Jamie for a bit?" Jean asked, trying to stop the fight that she knew was about to happen.

"Fine, I'm getting tired of watching the little sicko," Tabby snapped, storming out of the room.

"I wonder what her problem is," Jamie commented to Jean as Tabby left.

(!)

(!)

Roberto was supposed to be watching Jamie, but he decided to stay in his room, so he told Jamie to yell if he needed anything. Of course, this was pretty much an invitation for Jamie.

"ROBERTO!" Jamie called, and Roberto came rushing into the room.

"What?' He asked.

"I'm kind of hot; could you make me some lemonade?" Jamie asked.

"Sure, whatever," Roberto said, starting out of the room.

"Actually," Jamie stopped him, "I'm more in the mood for some milk and cookies."

"Okay," he said, and got halfway out the door when...

"Actually, can you make me a S'more?"

"We don't have any marshmallows Jamie," Roberto said.

"I know," Jamie replied.

"Then...how...I'm not going to the store just to get you a marshmallow!" Roberto exclaimed.

"Well, you see," Jamie replied, an evil smirk on his face, "you are. The thing is, if I yell, Mr. Logan can be in here in 7.5 seconds, I know, I've checked. And, since I'm sure you don't want a danger room session, I suggest you go get me a S'more."

Roberto grumbled and cussed on his way out, vowing to get Jamie, but he wasn't worried. He was in charge now.

(!)

A few hours later

(!)

The other recruits had met in the library. They too had noticed the fact that Jamie could get away with anything.

"What are we going to do?" Amara asked. "He had me make him soup the other day, and I had to do it eight times before he agreed to eat it."

"You were lucky," Sam told her, "he didn't get bored while you were there."

"Why? What did he make you do?" Jubilee asked.

"You don't want to know," Sam said, hanging his head.

"Uh, 'action figures'?" Ray asked. "Man, he can play those things for hours."

"Yeah, talk about embarrassing, they're dolls" Sam said.

"It's not fair. I mean, I know he's sick, and he can't do anything, but it's downright wrong to make us do everything for him," Roberto said.

"Aye, if it wasn't for Wolverine, I'd have bit the lad by now," Rahne said, showing her teeth. The others backed away slightly.

"Aw, come on guys, he's not that bad," Bobby said.

"Bobby, he made you make a bunch of ice sculptures, just so he could smash them because he was bored. And you say that's not that bad?" Tabby asked.

"Wait, you're still thinking it's your fault, right?" Jubilee asked.

"It's not?" Bobby asked, confused.

The rest of the recruits groaned.

"That's why you've been backing up the little twerp?" Ray asked. "You thought it was your fault?"

"I spent an hour making those stupid sculptures, and it wasn't even my fault he's sick!" Bobby exclaimed, pacing around the room. The recruits ignored him, and kept talking.

"Man, things were so much easier when he was at the hospital," Sam sighed.

"Yeah, I wish the little twerp would go back," Ray said, "At least there he has all the nurses to get stuff for him."

"It'd be nice, but you heard what the doctor's said, he's doing fine, and he'll get better in a few weeks," Jubilee said.

"Four more weeks of hell," Ray grumbled.

The clock in the room chimed three o' clock, and Jubilee jumped up.

"Oh yeah, Amara, we promised Jamie we'd take him to the mall," Jubilee said.

"I thought he wasn't supposed to leave the house?" said Sam.

"Anything to get him out of here," Tabby said, leaving the room.

(!)  
At the mall

(!)

"Hey let's get some ice cream, no let's get some video games, no how about we go in here, no maybe in here..." Jamie was excited; he hadn't been allowed to leave the hospital or house in two weeks. He was talking at a rate that even the mighty Quicksilver would be proud of, and giving his two chaperones's a headache.

"You think we can ditch him somewhere?" Amara asked Jubilee.

"Yeah, and have Logan ground our butts till school starts, come on," Jubilee said.

"He's driving me nuts, let's just get him some ice cream and leave," Amara said.

Even before they got to the food court, they noticed Jamie starting to slow down. He started walking slower, and kept holding his head.

"What's wrong Jamie?" Jubilee asked.

"My head hurts," Jamie said.

"Well, how about we get a milkshake and go home. I'm sure Mr. McCoy's got some Advil at home," Amara said.

"Could we just go home?" Jamie asked. "I'm tired and hot."

"But you've been begging for ice cream for days..." Amara stopped with a glare from Jubilee.

"We don't want his highness to get all upset," she whispered to Amara.

"You don't think he's really sick?" Amara asked.

"No..." she was stopped when Jamie leaned on her, slightly giving her a hug. She felt his forehead, and gasped when she felt how hot he was. "Let's get you home," she said.

An hour later, Jamie was readmitted into the hospital, on his way to surgery.

**A/N Okay, here's the next chapter. Don't you just hate it when people leave it off on a cliffhanger...is Jamie going to die? Is Jubilee going to feel guilty about not believing Jamie? Will Bobby be able to get over the fact that Jamie had him believing it was his fault? Review, to find out!**


	5. The Misfits

_Hey, sorry it took so long to review. I could say that my computer broke down, but it didn't, or that I was busy, but I wasn't, or that I didn't have any inspiration, because I did, I guess you could blame it all on laziness. Yea Summer! _

_Oh, Fiona12690, I put in Rogue for you, I hope I got her stupid accent right, I spent forever on it. _

_Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, don't forget to put one down for this chapter, thanks!_

Jamie hated hospitals. _They're so white, why can't they put some color in?_ _I'm tired. Why am I so tired?_ He remembered being at the mall with Jubilee and Amara, and feeling so sick, and then he ended up here. What happened? His arm was hurting, and looking down, he saw it was in a cast, and blood was draining from his arm into a bag through a tube. He was going to ask what was going on, but he was too tired.

He could barely make out the voices of the people in the room; it was like they were speaking in another language. Suddenly, there was a funny feeling in his throat, and before he understood what was going on, he threw up.

"Aw, Jamie, that's so disgusting, could you stop it already?" Jamie heard a voice ask.

"Jubilee," he heard another voice say. "You know he can't help it."

"Yeah, but Storm, we've already had to change his hospital gown three times, can't he at least warn us before he barfs?" The other voice, Jubilee said.

Jamie heard Storm sigh, and felt her reaching to change his gown, when he fell asleep.

(!)

(!)

Three hours later, Jamie woke up again, feeling slightly better, and looked to see who was watching him. It was Rogue.

"Rogue?" He asked, trying to work past the anesthesia that was put into him before surgery. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Rogue explained, "Tabitha got grounded for stealing Logan's R movies, and Bobby says he's going to kill you for making him believe that it was his fault, so Ororo thought it was best if someone else watched you."

"I told Bobby the first day it wasn't his fault!" Jamie said.

"Yeah, but this is Bobby we're talking 'bout. Ah doubt he listened to ya," Rogue said.

Jamie grumbled for a bit, before he realized he was about to throw up. Before he could even ask, Rogue had put a bucket in front of him, which he gratefully gave his lunch to.

"Thanks," he said, after she wiped his mouth, and washed off his face. She merely nodded, and handed him a picture.

"Here," she said. "Jubilee told meh ta give this to you, since she's not watching you at all today."

Jamie looked at the picture. It was the new recruits. Bobby had his arm around Jubilee, Rahne was morphed into her dog form, and looked like she was about to bite Roberto, Amara was between Sam and Ray, obviously uncomfortable in her position, and Tabitha looked like she was about to blow up the camera, a cherry bomb already in her hand. Jamie was blocked by the other mutants; you could barely see his head. He was in front at first, but Bobby had pushed him in the back right before Hank snapped the picture, saying that he was in the way.

He hated that picture. It was just more proof that he didn't fit in with the others, that he wasn't really part of their group.

Rogue had gone back to her book, Jamie watched her for a few minutes, and fell back asleep.

An hour later, lunch came. Jamie wasn't too eager about eating, but Rogue said he should at least try, and so he forced down some of the stuff some could mistake for food.

Twenty minutes later he threw up again. Rogue slightly grimaced, but held up his bucket before he could soil his gown again.

"So Rogue," Jamie said after a few minutes. "What's wrong with me again?"

"Jamie, Hank's explained this ta ya already," Rogue said, not glancing up from her book.

"Yeah, but it was Hank, I couldn't understand what he was saying," Jamie complained.

"Okay," she gave in, putting down her book. "You have an infection in your arm, right on the growth plate," Rogue pointed to his wrist. "The doctors just did surgery on it, and scraped it off, so you should be getting better in a few days."

"What about this bag thing with the blood?" Jamie asked, pointing to the IV that was connected to the bag. "It's really gross looking."

"That's draining out the antibiotics they put in there or something like that," Rogue said, obviously getting bored with the conversation, and returned to her book.

But, since Jamie was bored, he wasn't going to let her ignore him. He started asking random questions until she finally gave up trying to get some peace, and talked with him for a few minutes. Jamie was surprised at how talkative she could be, he never really talked to her before. Actually, he hardly talked to any of the older mutants, they didn't have the same schedule as the new recruits, and so they couldn't really get together that often.

They talked for a bit on how tough Logan could be, and how annoying the Professor could sometimes be, with his whole 'we have to set an example for mutants everywhere' and all that jazz.

"Do you hang out with them a lot?" Jamie asked Rogue.

"Who?" Rogue asked.

"Scott and Jean and Kitty, you know, your group."

Rogue looked away for a second, and answered, "Not really."

"Why not? You're the same age as them; you have a cool power, how come you don't go out with them?"

"It's complicated, Jamie," Rogue said. "Ah don't really fit in with them that well."

Jamie watched her, to see if she would explain further, and when she didn't, he said, "Me neither. But I always thought that it was because I'm different, but you're not different from them."

Rogue sighed. "Let's just leave it at we don't like the same things, okay?"

Jamie nodded, realizing that this was a touchy subject for Rogue. He had heard Bobby say that Rogue didn't get along with the others because of her power, but Jamie always thought that she, like him, thought her powers were lame, and the others didn't want to be with her. But he had seen the way she had looked at Scott when he was with Jean, or when Kitty had Lance were together, holding hands. Jamie was only 12, but he knew that Rogue wanted to be with Scott, and that watching all the couples going around the institute only hurt her more.

"Ah guess we have something in common, huh?" Rogue said to Jamie.

"What?" Jamie asked.

"We're both the misfits of the group."

"Oh, yeah." Jamie said sadly. It was true; they were the only two that didn't really fit in. Even Evan was a part of the group before he left for the Morlocks. Rogue was a lot nicer than the other new recruits made her out to be, and he realized that she was just as misunderstood as he was.

"Well, Jamie, it looks like my four hours are up," Rogue said, getting up from her chair. "Kitty should be down in a few minutes for the next shift."

Jamie groaned, four hours hearing about shoes and shopping and other girl stuff. Jamie took the easy way out, and fell asleep.

Three and a half hours later, he woke up, and Kitty, who had nothing to do but watch TV, (which were still mostly in Spanish, and she had been forced to watch a bunch of soap opera's) was incredibly happy to see him awake.

"Okay, I know we only have half an hour, but this is going to be so fun!" She squealed, trying to stuff one of her deadly muffins down his throat.

"Um, Kitty?" Jamie said meekly, trying to get her attention.

She stared at him for a second. "Yeah?"

"I don't think I can eat right now," he said, trying to avoid the muffin. But Kitty was to fast, and was able to get some into his mouth. He got that feeling in his stomach, but since Kitty didn't have the motherly instincts that Rogue had; Jamie threw up all over his gown, making Kitty shriek and jump away from his bed.

Kitty glared at Jamie threw the whole chore of changing his hospital gown, he wasn't sure if it was because he had thrown up, or if it was because of her muffins that he had. Whatever the case, she was rather stiff with him for the rest of her time with him.

Jamie wasn't that sad to see her go, he didn't know her that well, and he was really embarrassed that a girl he hardly knew saw him in his underwear while she was changing him.

"Hey Kitty," Jamie called out to her.

"Yeah," she said, turning around.

"Who's babysitting me next?"

"Um, I think its Kurt's turn."

"Hey Jamie, time to p-a-r-t-y!" Jamie saw Kurt from the doorway, and he sat up in his bed to see him. "We're going to have a fun time Jamie; I brought all this cool stuff to do."

Jamie looked at the stuff in his hands. Besides a large amount of snack foods that Kurt couldn't bear to part, he had a few whoopee cushions, water guns, and...what looked like maps of the institute, mainly the boys' hallway.

Oh yes, quality time with the institutes main prankster would be _very _educational.

_Just a little note, because my sister wanted me to, she helped a lot with this story, and she's been very patient with answering all my questions on her stay in the hospital, you know, to make it more authentic and all that jazz, but, however, she has not been that patient in me getting around to typing this, or waiting for me to finish a chapter before kicking me off the computer to tell me all my mistakes. Thanks sis._


	6. Pranks, Showers, and Capture the Flag

_A/N Okay, my sister's would like me to say that they helped a lot on this chapter. __Thanks to all my reviewer's. Don't forget to leave a review on this chapter._

_Disclaimer- I don't own the X-men, Reece's Peanut Butter Cup Breakfast stuff, or the slight reference to a Dave the Barbarian line that my sisters put in._

Kurt was always known as the resident prankster of the institute, followed closely by Bobby, with Jamie not far behind. In Kurt's four hour's with Jamie, he was going to make sure Jamie got the number 2 position on the prankster poll.

"First off, who do you vant to prank? Alvays know your victim," Kurt said.

"Um, well, Bobby, because he says he's going to kill me..." Jamie started, when Kurt interrupted him.

"If he alveady vants to kill you, vhy do you vant to get him even more angry?"

"Well, I owe Bobby, and he can't touch me," he pointed to his arm, which was still in a cast, "With this thing on, I'm untouchable." He grinned evily (or as evily as he can, he's so dang cute!).

"You are very evil mein fruend," Kurt said, wearing an equally evil grin, (which worked so much better with the fangs).

"I know, it's so perfect, I just yell out for one of the teachers, and they come running, there are definite perks to being sick," Jamie said.

"Okay, so, ve know you vant to get Bobby, who else do you vant?" Kurt asked.

"I guess Tabitha, Roberto and....uh...Sam I guess," Jamie said.

"Alrighty then, do you have any ideas?" Kurt asked him.

"Well, I want to do something with marshmallows for Roberto..." Jamie started.

"Marshmallows, vhy?"

"It's a long story," Jamie said. "You see, I wanted a S'more, and Roberto didn't want to get me any, and I calmly told him _exactly _why he should get me a marshmallow, and I figure he needed to be reminded about the power of Jamie! Actually," he said, "it's not that long of a story after all. I was thinking that we could fill his room up with marshmallows or something, but that would take too many."

"Yeah, I've seen it done with balloons, and it takes a ton," Kurt said. Suddenly, he jumped up from his chair, and said, "I know, we put the marshmallows _in_ some of the balloons, and when Roberto walks in, it's completely filled with balloons. And vhen he starts popping balloons, he sees the marshmallows, it's like a calling card. And ve von't need nearly as many marshmallows. Eet's perfect."

"That's great Kurt!" Jamie said. "Now, what about the others?"

Four Hours Later

Kurt's visit was just ending with Jamie. He was exhausted. Four hours of prank planning was a lot of work. He couldn't wait until he was better, and actually do all the stuff they planned. He was going to mock Bobby's powers by building a snowman in the middle of his room, with a sign that said "Iceman" on it, he was going to dye Sam's hair black, and for Tabitha, he had something special planned. As in rigging-her-entire-room type special plan.

Oh, he couldn't wait until he was better again.

Jean walked in the room, obviously worried about the smile on Jamie's face, and the thoughts he was sending a little too loudly.

"I don't want to know what you're thinking about," she said. "And if you're planning anything on me, don't even bother." She smirked, "Not even the almightily Night crawler can prank me without me knowing first. I love being a telepath."

Jamie glanced at her uneasily, trying to clear his mind of all thoughts of his pranks, he didn't want Miss Goody Two Shoes, (or whatever Rogue called her) to spoil his plans. Finding this difficult, and not wanting to talk to Jean, Jamie turned on the TV.

It was one of those Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cereal, Jamie hated those commercials, how could none of the kids have seen them at the store, and realize that they're friends _weren't_ eating candy for breakfast? Or how they just _happened_ to have a bowl and spoon with them? It was plain weird.

Before he could start ranting about this to Jean, he noticed her sniffing the air.

"When was the last time you had a shower?" She asked him, wrinkling her nose.

"Um, I think I had one two days ago, but they were so busy with the surgery and stuff, they didn't really worry about smelling clean," Jamie said.

"Okay, you're taking a shower, get up," Jean said, closing the door with her telekinesis, and then using it to lift him out of his bed, and leading him into the shower.

With one arm in a cast, and the other with an IV in it, he couldn't bend his arms, which meant Jean would have to do _everything._

"Is there any way you could give me a shower _without _looking at me?" Jamie asked, as he started to strip.

"Unless you want soap in your eye- no," Jean replied, turning on the water.

Danger Room, Same time

"Okay twerps," Wolverine said, pacing back and forth in front of the new recruits. "Today, since Jamie's still in the hospital and you're missing a teammate, Ororo's making me give you the easy sim today." He glared at Ororo as he said it, he hated giving the kids things that they enjoyed, it took the fun out of everything.

"Yes!" Bobby exclaimed, "Capture the flag!"

"We're Red this time, Bobby," Ray told him.

"Fine," Bobby said. He looked at his teammates. They always played Capture the flag when either Logan couldn't think of anything else, or Ororo talked them into giving them a break. The teams were always the same, Bobby, Jubilee, Sam, and Jamie, versus Ray, Tabby, Rahne, Roberto and Amara.

"Okay, Sam, you head for the flag, Jubes, stop Rahne, she's the fastest. Jamie, multiply yourself and start distracting the others."

"Uh...Bobby?" Jubilee asked, "Jamie's not here."

"Yeah, man, are ya losing it?" Sam asked. "Weren't ya the one who was saying how much easier breakfast was without him this morning?"

"Oh yeah," Bobby said. He called out to Ray, "Hey man, we need another player!"

Ray sent Amara over, grinning, even though he had to give up a teammate; he knew Bobby didn't stand a chance without Jamie.

At the End of the Game

Ray's team was celebrating; they had never won a game of capture the flag.

"You know, maybe I was wrong," Bobby said, "we do need Jamie back." It was common knowledge that Bobby hated losing. "I can't believe that little twerp is the only reason we've been winning." It was also common knowledge that Bobby liked to take the credit for winning.

"Yeah, I didn't realize that either," Jubilee said. "I always thought he got in the way, I didn't think that he was helping."

"He _was_ getting in the way," Amara confirmed. "You never had to put up with 3 multiples grabbing your legs so you couldn't walk."

"Why didn't you just power up?" Sam asked.

"And get in trouble from Mr. Logan for burning that miserable peasant?" Amara snapped. "I don't think so."

"Hey," Sam said, "that miserable peasant wins us every game."

"Wins _you_ every game," Amara said, "I see no use for him."

"What about the time when you wanted your room painted, and Jamie was the only one who helped you?" Jubilee asked with a smirk.

"Or the time that you wanted to get back at Bobby when he pulled that prank on you, he was the one who thought to use his teddy bear to lure him outside into that trap," Ray said, walking towards them with the rest of his 'team'.

"Ya Amara, Jamie's helped you a lot," Sam said.

"Okay, so he's done a few things, that doesn't mean I have to be eternally grateful for it," Amara huffed.

"Want to go visit him at the hospital again?" Roberto asked. "The last time was fun, we could have another mini-party."

"Waste another four hours with Jamie?" Tabitha asked.

"Tabby's right, we don't have to anymore, why not take advantage of that?" Ray asked.

"Sounds good to me," Amara said. "It's a lot quieter without him, and I plan to take full advantage of that, I'm going to be in my room."

She started to walk out, when Bobby called out, "Come on, Amara, its fun sneaking in there with all our junk food."

"I don't know," Rahne said, "the last time the nurses were getting pretty mad at us."

"Aw, who cares?" Bobby said. "We do a lot of things were not supposed to."

"Yeah, and we get in a lot of trouble for it," Jubilee said.

"Well, I think the little twerp needs some cheering up," Roberto said.

"Yeah, let's go tell Wolverine," Ray said.

"I'll go get my cards, Tabby, you get all the food, Amara-the drinks," Bobby started giving out orders.

"Who's supposed to be watching Jamie next?" Jubilee asked.

"I think its Storm," Tabby said. "But don't include me in your stupid little plans, I'm not going anywhere near that hospital unless it's getting me out of these torture sessions."

She walked out of the room, ignoring the glares she was getting. In reality, none of them wanted to go to the hospital, but they were still going. It just showed how much Tabby really _did_ belong with the Brotherhood; she didn't really care about the X-men as much as she did with the 'hood members.

"Okay then, Roberto, you get drinks, and I'll tell Storm she doesn't have to watch Jamie," Bobby said.

"Don't bother kid," Logan said, coming through the door in the Danger Room. "We just got the news from the hospital."

"What's happening? Is Jamie going to come home early?" Amara asked.

"No," Logan said.

"Then why can't we go down there?" asked Jubilee.

"Because the doctors didn't get all the gunk, or whatever it's called outta his arm the first time," Logan said, "they gotta do another surgery. And they think there's a secondary infection in the heart."

"What does that mean?" Bobby asked.

"Do I look like Hank to you? How am I supposed to know?" Logan said. As usual, when he was nervous, he tended to go off on people.

"It means that the pick-line in his arm might be infected, and is spreading it into his heart," Hank said, from the observation deck in the danger room.

"Is that bad?" Bobby asked.

"Yes, it's bad Bobby," Hank said.

"But what do you care Popsicle? Wasn't it just this morning that you said that it was better without him anyways?" Logan growled.

"I didn't mean it like tha..." Bobby started.

"Admit it, you guys are getting along better without him," Logan said, starting to walk out of the room. But not before a final warning, "Stay in your rooms, I have to go to the hospital, and the other adults are coming with me, I don't want you lot getting in trouble while we're gone...again." He stormed out of the room, leaving a group of very confused and hurt mutants.

_A/N Sorry if Tabby seems OOC, but I figured she wouldn't be to keen on wasting time in a hospital, don't get me wrong, I love Tabby babying Jamie just as much as the next person, but I just wanted somebody who really didn't care, and she seemed like the perfect choice._


	7. Attack!

_A/N Hey, sorry for taking so long, but I really couldn't think of where to go, so I hope this chapters long enough for you. Oh yeah, last chapter, Logan wasn't mad at Jamie, he was worried about him, and got mad when he found out that the new recruits were using Jamie to have an unchaperoned party type thing, sorry if that was confusing. _

_Thanks to all my reviewers, don't forget to review this chapter. _

_On with the story!_

Jamie was _here_ again. He didn't know where _here_ was, but he knew it was bad. _But how can something so peaceful be so bad?_ Jamie thought to himself. _It's so nice here, there's nothing to do, nobody here, it's great._ But he couldn't help thinking that there was a reason he shouldn't like it here, but he was to care-free to notice.

---A few hours later---

"Jamie, are you awake?"

"Yeah, like, can you hear us?"

"Leave him alone Kitty, he should sleep a little longer," snapped Rogue, and Jamie opened his eyes.

In the room all the older X-men and adults, with the exception of Beast were crowded inside his hospital room, but the new recruits were not there.

"Hey...guys...what are you doing here?" Jamie asked slowly, trying to work off the anesthesia. "Where's Bobby and all them?"

"Seems they had some more important things to do," Logan said gruffly. Jamie didn't really understand what he meant, but he ignored it for the present time.

"How do you feel Jamie," The Professor asked.

"Tired," Jamie said, not really being able to describe how he felt.

"Well, that's usually expected after surgery, how does your arm feel?" The professor asked again.

"Better," Jamie said, trying to move his arm, even though it was in a cast. He was feeling a little more clear-headed, and decided to ask again, "Where are the others?"

Logan answered, choosing his words carefully so as not to upset the boy. "They were...acting up, and so I gave them some work around the mansion to do."

"Oh," Jamie said, he was disappointed, he wanted them there when he woke up.

"But we have some good news," Jean said, "You get to go home once they put the IV back in, which will only take a few hours."

"Yeah, so like, by dinner tonight, you'll be home again!" Kitty said.

"It'll be good to have you back kid," Scott told him, putting a hand on his shoulder, "Bobby just can't make as much noise as you can, it's to quiet around the house. I think we're all going crazy by the silence."

---The Drive home---

Jamie was driving home with Logan in the X-van, a pick line in one arm and a scar on the other. The older X-men had driven home in Scott's car, and the Professor and Ororo had somewhere else to go, so it was just him and Wolverine. Not that Jamie minded that much, he looked up to the older mutant, but he wanted to talk to someone his own age, not one he could be his great-grandfather.

"What did the others do?" Jamie asked Logan.

"What others?"

"Bobby and Jubilee and all them," Jamie said.

"I told you, they were acting up, and got extra chores to do," Logan told him.

"What did they do?" Jamie asked.

Logan sighed, and was silent for a few minutes. Just as Jamie was about to give up on it, Logan answered. "Kid, I didn't want to have to tell you this but the others...well, the others were saying some things that I didn't approve of."

Jamie was confused. "Like what?"

"At breakfast yesterday morning, they were making some rather nasty comments..." he trailed off, not knowing where to go next.

"About me," Jamie said, understanding what Logan was trying to tell him.

"Yeah," Logan admitted.

"But, why?" Jamie asked.

"Because, sometimes in life, you meet people who think they can do everything by themselves, people who don't think they need help. When you were there, you seemed like an annoyance, someone who just got in the way. And to them, that was okay, because then anything that went wrong could be blamed on you. But since you were gone, they've realized that they can't do everything by themselves, and that you're a key member of their team." He gave a slight laugh, "And they don't like admitting that."

Jamie was silent; he didn't really know what to say. He always knew the other recruits hated him, he just couldn't believe that what Wolverine was telling him was true.

"Really?" He asked Logan.

"Yeah kid, just don't tell them I told you," Logan said as they pulled into the driveway.

---At the Mansion---

Meanwhile, at the mansion, the other new recruits were working off their punishment from Logan. Between the nine of them, they were able to do all the dishes from breakfast, the weekly laundry, and clean the main rooms of the mansion.

"I can't believe I'm stuck doing this too" Tabitha said, dusting some of the tables off. "I wasn't even in the room when you all got busted."

"Yeah, but you're one of the reasons we got busted," Ray snapped, his notoriously short temper beginning to strain as he swept the floor.

"Not my fault Wolvie has super hearing and heard every word we said."

"Listen I think it was everybody's fault, now will one of you help me clean this mess?" Amara said. Now when Amara says 'will you help me' she means 'clean this up for me'. Of course no one volunteered.

"Come on" Bobby said "We need to get this done, or Logan will really kill us. You heard what he said."

"Yeah, listen to the runt" a scary yet quite familiar voice said.

All the New recruits scampered to finish their chores. It was ...Logan! Mr. "if you don't finish your probation you have extra danger room sessions with me." None of them wanted to be caught not doing their chores.

Bobby was the first one brave enough to speak. "Where's Jamie?"

"I'm right here." Jamie said softly.

The other recruits stared at him for a few seconds. He had lost a lot of weight, he hadn't been eating much, and was throwing up a lot, and he was still really pale. He looked up at the older mutants cautiously, not sure if they were going to attack him or something.

"How you doing Jamie?" Roberto asked him, getting one of the bags from Logan that he brought from the hospital.

"I'm okay," Jamie said, "but I'm really tired. Can I go to my room now?" He asked Logan. "I want to sleep in my own bed. I can't tell you how much I missed sleeping in my bed."

"Sure, kid," Logan said. "Jut don't trip on the stairs again or something."

Jamie nodded and headed up the stairs to his room. The other recruits stared after him.

"What are you twerps looking at?" Logan asked. "You still have work to do."

"How come Jamie's parents didn't come down here?" Bobby blurted out, ignoring Logan's order to get back to work.

"Yeah, my parents would have come over if I was sick," Sam said.

Logan sighed, he wasn't sure if Jamie wanted the other kids to know about his family, but then he decided it didn't matter. Almost every mutant's family was messed up somehow.

"He doesn't have parents, at least, ones that we know of, he was in a foster home when he discovered his powers," Logan told them.

The recruits nodded, and went back to work, if they stalled any longer, Logan might get angry, and they weren't in the mood for a danger room session.

---In Jamie's Room---

Jamie was lying in his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He couldn't believe how happy he was to be home. Well, not home, but the place he had called home for the past year, back with the people he called his family.

Speaking of family, outside his door, Roberto and Bobby were debating whether they wanted to go inside and talk to Jamie. Neither of them really wanted to, but they felt it was the right thing to do. Actually, _Roberto_ thought it was the right thing to do, and dragged Bobby along with him.

"I don't know if we should bug him," Bobby said, racking his brain for an excuse to avoid talking to Jamie. "He sounded tired, and if he's asleep, I don't want to wake him up."

"He'll want to talk to us," Roberto said. "He hasn't seen anybody around his age in a few weeks; he's probably bored out of his skull."

"Okay," Bobby gave in, "but if we wake him up and Logan wants to kill us, I'm blaming you."

They went inside the room, trying to be quiet, in case Jamie was asleep. He wasn't, and he stared at them curiously as they sat down on his bed.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asked them.

"We just wanted to see how you were doing," Roberto told him. He nudged Bobby.

"Uh, yeah, and I wanted to tell you that I don't think you're a bad team member or whatever else Wolverine told you I said," Bobby said, as bluntly as he could. He didn't understand why he had to be up here instead of Tabitha or Ray, but he wasn't going to mess with Roberto, the only mutant whose powers could stop his own.

"Really?" Jamie asked as happy as he could, which wasn't that energetic, since he still was kind of tired.

"Sure you a great member of the team .We need you on missions and simulators and everything." Roberto said nudging Bobby to say something.

"Yeah and besides that you're a....ummm..." He trailed off.

"A terrific person" Roberto finished.

"Yeah," Bobby agreed quickly. By now, Jamie knew that Bobby was lying, he might be drugged up, but he was smart enough to know that Roberto was making Bobby apologize.

"So, how was your last week in the hospital?" Roberto asked.

"It was okay I guess, but I didn't like the food," Jamie said, and they all laughed. "I didn't like how the doctors knew I was a mutant though."

"Well, Jamie," Bobby said, "they prick you with a needle and a multiple pops out, I think it's kind of obvious that they would have to know."

"Yeah, but, even though it's a hospital that anyone could go to, I was the only kid on the floor with my own room. And when they did try to put me with another kid, the parents freaked out, saying they didn't want their son in the same room as a 'freak.'" Jamie was upset, and Bobby and Roberto knew it. He didn't go to school, and didn't hear the verbal abuse the others put up with every day. He wasn't used to it.

"Hey kid, its okay," Bobby said, slightly ruffling his hair. "That kid's the freak, we're the special ones. Those humans just don't know it yet."

"I thought Storm said we _all_ were humans," a voice came through the door. Jamie looked up to see Jubilee walk into the room. "Remember, and then she gave us a twenty minute lecture on how we shouldn't think ourselves any better or less than everybody else."

"Oh, yeah," Bobby said. "But when they say things like that, they deserve to just be mentioned as the lowly humans they are."

Before Jubilee could respond, the Professor's voice came into their minds.

_X-men and recruits, we have just gotten word that the Brotherhood and the Acolytes are trying to rob the Bayville Bank, I need all of you to go down their and try to stop them. _

Bobby, Jubilee and Roberto got up immediately, and said a quick goodbye to Jamie.

"Why do those nerds need to rob a bank?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah, I thought Magneto was paying for everything now," Jubilee said.

"I'm not complaining," Roberto said, "this is our first real missions since Apocalypse, I was hoping for some action."

Jamie sat in his room, once again left out of a mission. He wouldn't even get to find out what was happening until everyone came home, unless the news had heard about it, and he could watch his friends on TV.

He hurried down the stairs, even though he was really tired, so he wouldn't miss any of it. On the way down, he almost knocked over Hank.

"What are you doing here Mr. McCoy? Why aren't you with the others?" Jamie asked him, walking with him down to the living room.

"I _was _going down to the lab, but since you're in such a hurry, I think I'd better keep an eye on you," Hank said. "And I didn't go with the others because you need someone to watch you."

"Oh," Jamie said. Geez, he was 12 years old, he didn't need a babysitter.

A few minutes of flipping channels and trying to find the right news station finally showed them a good view of the fight. But a few minutes into it, he realized that Hank had stopped moving, and was listening intently. He pressed mute on the TV, and Jamie could hear a crash, and a loud curse.

They weren't alone in the mansion.

Hank immediately turned off the TV, told Jamie to stay put, and ran out of the room. Jamie stood frozen with fear, not really sure what to do.

A few seconds passed, and he heard a horrible yell that was obviously Beast. Before he knew what happened, the door burst opened, and Mystique burst in, carrying a weapon that was probably used to knock out Hank.

She pointed the gun at Jamie.

"I guess Magneto's plan to clear the mansion didn't go as well as planned. No matter, only the rejects got left behind," Mystique said.

Jamie's face turned bright red; it was bad enough that his teammates called him that, but people he didn't even know? He did the only thing he was trained to do in situations like these: clap his hands, make multiples, and yell really loudly.

Clapping his hands hurt a lot, but it got about 20 multiples out of him. They were able to distract Mystique from the real Jamie, and if they got hit, they would disappear without any problem. Mystique was having a hard time trying to get rid of all the Jamie's on her, while trying to locate the real one.

There was Jamie's everywhere. All of them trying to get rid of the gun from Mystique, and avoid getting hit. Mystique was knocking out as many duplicates as she could, but she was losing energy quickly.

Jamie was hiding behind the couch, trying to think of a plan. When he felt that his army of Multiples were getting to weak, he sent out a couple more. But this was tiring after a while, and he started to feel weak.

His multiples finally got the gun away from Mystique, and Jamie got out from his hiding place behind the couch. Mystique's nose was bleeding, and it looked like one of her arms was broken, but Jamie couldn't really tell. Mystique was holding her tongue, trying to keep what shred of dignity she had left. With his multiples holding her, Jamie was able to get in a swift kick that Logan had taught him, knocking her out.

--Meanwhile, the other mutants we're coming back from their mission.--

"Man, I can't believe those jerks ran when they saw us coming," Ray said. "We had to suit up and fly all the way down their, and we only fought for a few minutes."

The others agreed with him, until Logan and Rahne stopped suddenly, sniffing the air. While Rahne looked confused, Logan's faced instantly transformed into a scowl.

"You might get some action yet," he told Ray, "I smell Mystique."

The others quickly followed him into the living room, where they came to just in time to see Jamie knocking Mystique out.

Logan quickly went to him, propping the boy up, because he looked like he was about to pass out.

Right before he actually did, he said, "Look guys... I saved the mansion.... I'm not a reject." And he collapsed in Logan's arms.

_Sorry if I screwed up his history, but hey, this is Author's Universe, which means I can do whatever I want, don't bother flaming me on it, I won't read it anyway. Constructive Criticism I can handle flames I can't. _

_Don't forget the review!_


	8. Halloween

_Okay people, I know, it's been forever, but, as always, I have excuses! Seems that not all chemistry teachers are as cool as Mr. McCoy, and, because of this, I'm getting a D in that class. Until it's up to a B, I'm sort of "grounded", which means I can only use the computer when no one else is home, which doesn't happen often, which is why the Halloween chapter is 4 days late. _

_In other news, I thought that since this story was under "general" I could put in a little humor. Is that how it goes? It's kind of a bridge to the next chapter, so if you don't like it, as my friend would say, "cry me a river, make a bridge, and get over it."_

_Thanks for all your wonderful reviews, please don't forget to review this chapter. Thanks! _

Jamie was sick of waking up in a hospital room. Well, actually, this wasn't thehospitalthis was the infirmary, but it was still annoying to wake up in a room that wasn't his own, it was one filled with people.

"Ah, Jamie, you're awake," Hank said when he noticed Jamie waking up.

"Yeah, but I'm really tired, what happened?" He asked, noticing his bare arms covered in bruises. Suddenly, it came back to him. "Oh, my gosh," he said. "Mystique, she came to the mansion, and everyone was gone, and Hank was gone, and I had to fight her, and...and....what happened? That's all I remember."

"You certainly had quite a fight with Mystique," the Professor said.

"Yeah," Scott said, "She was knocked out for a couple of hours before she regained consciousness."

"Told you those danger room sessions would come in handy someday," Logan chuckled.

"I guess so," Jamie said, rubbing his head. "But why does my head feel like it's about to explode?"

"Well, technically, when the doctors released you from the hospital, they were expecting you to stay in bed. They didn't really want you to be fighting one of the best mutant fighters in the world. You're probably going to be feeling tired for awhile."

"So what happened to Mystique?" Jamie asked.

The adults in the room looked at each other for a second.

"She escaped," Scott admitted.

"How?"

"Seems you can't let Boom-Boom be anywhere near Ray when they're supposed to be doing something important," Wolverine said.

Jamie looked confused, so Scott explained, "Ray and Tabitha got in a fight when they were supposed to be watching the room Mystique was in, and she got out when they weren't paying attention."

Jamie frowned. All that hard work of knocking Mystique out, and the others couldn't even hold her for a few hours?

The Professor heard the last part of his thought, and tried to hide his chuckle with a well placed cough.

"But now we've got to worry about what Magneto will do when Mystique tells him about you," Logan said.

"What do you mean?" Jamie asked.

"You were able to do what a lot of people can't do with years of training at only 12 years old, Magneto's bound to be interested in you," the Professor said.

"Not many people can beat Mystique," Hank said, "Magneto's going to want to see what else you can do."

"I don't know whether to be scared or flattered," Jamie said.

"Well, from now on, we'll try to be a little more careful about you," Scott said.

"Yeah," Logan said, "and you get some more Danger Room sessions every day with me from now on."

"What!" Jamie exclaimed. Extra danger room sessions were a punishment, he had won a fight, and he should have some time off.

"Logan, perhaps it would be better if Jamie had a little more recovery time," the Professor said.

"Fine," Logan said as he walked out, "but don't complain to me when Magneto comes and the kids out of shape."

Hank and the professor gave each other a glance, knowing that while Logan was kidding, there might have been some truth in that statement.

"Wait, Logan," the professor called him back. Jamie mentally groaned, knowing where this would lead to, and the professor shot him a slight reprimanding look.

"Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for Jamie to get some more lessons," Hank said. "As long as he stays inside, and doesn't do anything to dangerous, some exercise would do him good."

"I can't go outside?" Jamie asked.

"I don't want you catching anything," Hank explained. "Your immune system is too weak to fight anything off, so you're housebound for two weeks."

Jamie did a quick count inside his head.

"But that means I can't go trick-or-treating!" Jamie protested. "That's not fair! This is probably the last year that I'm young enough to go out without people saying I'm too old."

"You're too old already," Logan said.

Jamie stuck his tongue out at him. "I'm not old enough to join in the older kids' sessions in the Danger Room," he said.

Scott snorted, and Hank had to hide a smile. Jamie had done something that few people were able to do, prove Logan wrong.

"If I'm young enough to be in the easy danger rooms, then I'm young enough to trick-or-treat. And if I can't go, then somebody's going to have to get all that candy for me," Jamie said.

He was taking a big risk, and he knew it. Bossing around the new recruits was easy; they were scared of getting in trouble. But Logan wasn't afraid of anything, he didn't give in to people's demands.

"Well, Jamie, that sounds like a reasonable idea," the professor said, surprising everyone. "Logan will take over your trick-or-treating duties, if you agree to do extra sessions without complaing."

Jamie thought this over for a minute. Although he didn't really want to take Logan's sessions, he didn't want to miss out on all the candy that Logan could get for him.

"Works for me," he told the Professor.

"Very well, then, it's settled," Xavier said.

"Don't I get a say in this?" Logan asked, but by then, the Professor had already left. With one last glare at Jamie, Logan stormed out, probably to complain to Xavier.

Hank gave Jamie one last check of his blood pressure and temperature, and, satisfied with the results, let Jamie go with a final warning.

"Don't do anything too strenuous," he said. "And don't even think about going out for Trick-or-Treating."

"Oh, of course not," Jamie said, his perfect angel smile, that he was so famous for at the institute, hard at work. He had already formed a plan to get a little extra candy. With a quick goodbye to Hank and Scott, he left to perfect his plan.

He headed for his room, looked around suspiciously to see if anyone was following him, and quickly went in. He put a chair in front of the door, so no one could come in, and pulled out the map of the institute he had made weeks after he first got there.

It was a crude drawing, with many "X"'s on it on rooms where the residents had left, like Evan, or had changed rooms. He had used the map countless times on different pranks, and it was going to help him again.

"Now," he said quietly to himself, "Jean and Scott went to a party, so they're out." He made a quick little X on their bedrooms. "But I know Bobby and Jubilee are going out tonight for trick-or-treating."

He quickly made a "hit list" of all the kids that were going out for candy, and had perfected his plan, and the costume he would use, by nine o' clock.

By this time, everyone but the people out at parties were home, and Jamie decided now would be the perfect time to act. He had gotten a few of his multiples to make a costume that looked exactly like Wolverine's, down to plastic knifes glued on to a pair of Bobby's gloves. With a big trash bag in his hand, and two multiples by his side, Jamie set out for a little "trick or treating" of his own.

His first stop on the list was Kitty's room. She had talked Lance into going trick-or-treating with her, just for fun, and probably had a ton of candy.

He knocked on the door, and when Kitty answered, he said, in a voice that was as close as his prepubescent voice would allow, "Give me all your candy."

"Jamie? Is that, like, you?" Kitty asked, trying to pull up on the mask that was really only a paper lunch bag painted orange, off his head.

"Give me your candy," Jamie repeated, trying to keep his 'mask' on his head.

"Jamie, I know you didn't get to go out, but you shouldn't steal candy from other people," Kitty scolded him.

"If you refuse, the candy will be taken forcefully," Jamie told her.

"Jamie, you're starting to, like, totally creep me out," Kitty said, backing away from him.

This was exactly what Jamie was waiting for. Once Kitty had stepped out of the entrance, he clapped his hands, and led 5 multiples into her room.

"Hey!" Kitty exclaimed. "You're not supposed to use your powers!"

Jamie ignored her, and started to search for her candy. When one of the multiples found it, in her pillowcase for 'safekeeping', he quickly fled from the room.

The other multiples hadn't even gotten out of the room before they started to split up their loot.

"Quickly men," Jamie instructed them, "we have seven more rooms to hit tonight, we'll split up the candy later."

The multiples looked sadly at the candy; one of them had already stuffed a candy bar in his mouth, and put it back in the black trash bag. They knew there was plenty more where that came from.

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Out on the streets, Wolverine was having a lousy time. It was bad enough that he was out trick-or-treating on a perfectly good Sunday, but he didn't even have a kid with him. He ended up telling people that his nephew was in the hospital, and wanted some candy. It was a great way to have single women comment on how nice it was of him, but most of the people passing out candy were men, and laughed when they saw a grown man, in normal clothes, trick-or-treating.

Things were pretty bad, but Logan figured he was pretty much done by now. Jamie couldn't eat that much candy. There was just one more house to go to.

It was a rather broken down house, and it looked like it was about to collapse. Logan couldn't help but think that this house was somehow familiar. There was a sign near the entrance, but it was covered by vines, and he couldn't read what it said.

When he knocked on the door, he was so relieved that this was the last house; at first he didn't realize who had opened the door.

"Trick- or –treat," he grumbled, holding out the bag that Jamie had given him.

"Wolverine? Is that you?" A familiar voice said, and Logan almost kicked himself for not realizing where he was. "Ohmigosh, you guys have to see this," Lance said, laughing.

"What is it?" Todd asked, hopping towards the door. When he saw who it was, he fell on the floor, laughing.

"Aw, wait until Pietro hears about this!" Lance said, and slammed the door in his face.

Logan burned with embarrassment, silently making a list of all the ways he could kill Jamie in the danger room and make it look like an accident.

It wasn't until he was almost home that he realized Lance didn't give him any candy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Magneto was not impressed with Mystique being defeated. The fact that she was beaten up by a twelve year old interested him, though. Not even his son, who he was very proud of, even if he refused to show it, could have won in a match against Mystique, especially since she was armed.

He must have underestimated Charles and his X-men. The smallest, weakest one was able to defeat his greatest fighter.

Yes, this "Jamie" would need a closer look.

_Okay, just telling you, don't expect a new chapter real soon, so don't totally forget about me, the next chapter will be better, I promise. R&R please!_

_P.S. I have discovered why Rogue is a total brat in the cartoon. She's hot! I wore almost the exact same costume she wears in the series, and I seriously boiled. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't like people staring at her white hair, I dyed mine like hers, and everyone is staring at me funny. So, just wanted to clear that up for all you people who hate Rogue's _attitude_, (because no one really hates Rogue.) _


	9. Magneto attacks

**A/N yes, I've switched from italics to bold. All hail the power of boldness. Italics are just too hard to read. Anyways, thanks to: mikomi bansiki, SickmindedSucker, Princess of Mirrors, Internutter, Maiden Genisis, Raliena, TheDreamerLady, and Idypebsaby for reviewing! Hope you enjoy this chapter. **

"Jamie, I understand that you were disappointed that you couldn't go out trick-or-treating," the Professor said, "however, stealing candy from the other students isn't the right way to go about it."

It had been two months since his first candy raid, and the first night, the professor had called Jamie down to his study to have a talk, which Jamie didn't really listen to, but he nodded whenever the professor paused, which seemed to work out fine.

But now he had been caught again. There wasn't much candy left, but Bobby had noticed that his candy supply got smaller every time he went to school. And since Jamie was the only one who didn't go to school, and since he had a history of stealing candy, he was the first one that was blamed.

"I know you're bored, Jamie, but you need to find different ways of entertaining yourself," Xavier said.

"Yes Professor," Jamie said, his head bowed down in shame. Of course, it wasn't real shame. He wasn't sorry at all. Everyone else just had too much candy, and Wolverine hadn't gotten him nearly enough to fill up his sugar cravings. The professor hadn't said anything about giving the candy back, and Jamie wasn't planning on giving it out of the goodness of his heart, so really, everything was fine.

"Can I go now?" Jamie asked.

The professor smirked slightly at his impatience, but nodded his head, allowing Jamie to run out of the study as quickly as he could. His right arm was still in a cast, and the left one still with an IV in it, which was attached to a fanny-pack around his waist, so he wasn't able to move that quickly.

When he got to his room, he headed straight for the box under his bed, which was were he had hidden all the candy. But when he opened it, it was completely empty.

"Hey, what gives?" Jamie said out loud to himself.

"Hey shrimp," Bobby said, closing the bedroom door which he was hiding behind. In his hand, he had a bag, which Jamie figured held all his candy that he stole.

"That's mine," he told Bobby, even though it really wasn't, but he figured he might be able to reason with him.

"Please Jamie, we both know you're the one who's been sneaking into my room since Halloween," Bobby said.

"Finders keepers, losers weepers," Jamie said, saying the first thing he could think of to keep his precious candy.

"You are so dead twerp," Bobby said, starting to ice up, "Jubilee and I went out for three hours to get this much candy, and most of the people who recognized us as mutants slammed the door in our face."

"Well you should have worn a mask to hide that ugly face of yours," Jamie said, trying to keep Bobby distracted as he edged toward the window.

"Oh that was original you little…" Bobby was cut short by the alarm going off. Quickly, Bobby iced himself a slide, and raced out the door, giving Jamie a glare that promised he would be back. Jamie decided that, since he wasn't going to be allowed to fight, and Bobby left the bag of candy, he would eat as much as he could before Bobby got back.

Jamie fell back on his bed, candy in hand, listening to the voices and the fighting downstairs.

"What are you doing here, Creed?"

"Hey, guys, need a hand here, Pyro's melting all my ice."

"Hey, Mystique, nice cast, the shrimp give it to?"

"Where are all the other guys?"

"At the mall or something."

"Fine timing for that. Hey, watch it Ray!"

"Get out of the way then you idiot!"

"Try aiming!"

"Less fighting, or you guys get detention for a month."

Jamie laughed at Wolverine's comment. He really was the only guy he knew who could fight, and threaten his own teammates at once. But the fact that Sabertooth, Pyro, and Mystique were here worried him. Why would Mystique come back to the mansion?

Jamie got scared, and put a chair in front of his door. He didn't want to fight again. Suddenly, he heard a crash from his window. The glass was shattered all around the floor, and in the midst of it all was Gambit.

"Normally Remy doesn't like to take candy from kids, but he will make an exception this time," he said, and walked toward the bag and took some candy out. "Sorry about this," he said, grabbing Jamie, and jumped out the window. Jamie stated screaming, they were falling out the second story window, but before they hit the ground, they suddenly stopped.

Magneto was floating not to far away, and had stopped the fall before they could get hurt.

"Put him in and let's go," he told Gambit as he dropped them on the ground.

Gambit quickly wrapped some tape around his hands, and shoved him into one of the metal orbs that Magneto always traveled in.

"Hey, what are you doing? What's going on?" Jamie protested as the orb closed, putting him in complete darkness.

He could still hear what was going on outside. Mystique and the others and pulled back, making the X-men think they had won, and they were cheering and celebrating. It wouldn't be for a few more minutes until they realized he wasn't up in his room like they thought.

"Farewell Charles," he heard Magneto say, and Jamie felt the orb start to move. He tried to grab onto something, but it was completely smooth. Obviously, Magneto didn't care about the treatment of his prisoners.

"Prisoners…?" It took a few minutes to dawn on Jamie. "Oh my gosh, I've been captured! This is horrible, this is terrible…this would be so cool if it wasn't real!"

Down on the ground, Wolverine was wondering why Sabertooth had left. They were in the middle of a fight, he still could have won. But he just left. Something was definitely wrong, he just didn't know what.

"Is anybody hurt?" Hank asked, looking around.

"No, I don't think so," Bobby said.

"Was it just me, or did it seem like they weren't really fighting?" Amara asked.

"Yeah, it was almost like they were just distracting us," Storm said, "but why?"

"I don't know" Bobby said, "but I've got some unfinished business to attend to."

He went up the stairs to Jamie's room, and laughed when he realized that Jamie had barricaded the door.

"Let me in shrimp," he called out, "if you don't, I'm going to break down the door."

He paused when he didn't hear an answer. "Come on Jamie, let me in!" There was still no answer. Bobby started to get worried, and kicked at the door. Unfortunately, since the door was blocked by a chair, all that happened was he really hurt his leg.

"Jamie, open this door right now!" Bobby yelled, pounding on the door. The noise had attracted the mutants from downstairs, who quickly ran up.

"What's wrong, Bobby?" Storm asked.

"Jamie won't open the door, and there's something in front of it, I can't get in," Bobby told her, giving up on trying to get Jamie to open the door, and started holding his leg.

"Let me try," Logan said. His claws popped out, and with a few quick strikes, the door was in pieces on the floor.

"Where is he?" Jubilee asked as they went into his room.

Logan knelt down near the broken window, and picked up a single card off the floor. It was the Queen of hearts. "I think I know," he said.

Jamie had been traveling in the dark for a long time. The least Magneto could have done was install a radio.

Suddenly, the orb crashed down, jerking Jamie's head into the side. The door was opened, and Sabertooth reached in and pulled Jamie out. His hands were still bound in front of him, and Sabertooth had him raised in the air high enough so his feet couldn't touch the ground.

"Hello there Multiple, funny, you don't look like Multiple Man," Magneto said, emerging from his orb. He, Mystique, Gambit, and Pyro were all standing in front of him, on what looked like a beach. Jamie looked around, they were on a beach, and there was a metal door on one of the rocky mountain sides, which Jamie figured led to a hidden base.

"It's so nice to see you again, Jamie," Mystique said sarcastically. Jamie smirked when he noticed the cast on her arm.

"Guess I'm not a reject anymore, huh Mystique?" He laughed.

Mystique looked like she was going to slap him, but Magneto stopped her. "No, Multiple, we don't think you're a reject. Far from it actually. In fact, we need your help on something."

"Yeah, like I would help you with something," Jamie said, a lot braver than he actually felt. There was a bunch of adult mutants, probably fully evolved if Magneto had anything to say about it, and he was just a kid, arms pretty much useless and in a cast, and not able to reach the floor. The odds weren't looking good for Jamie.

Magneto ignored his comment, and examined his cast and the IV connected from his arm into the fanny pack. "What is this for?" He asked, holding up the IV, examining the liquid going through it.

"It's an IV," Jamie told him.

"I noticed that, why do you need it?"

Jamie wasn't sure if he should say. On the one hand, if Magneto knew he was sick, he might let him go, on the other hand, he might see Jamie as useless, and kill him rather then let him go back to the mansion.

"Its oste…osteo…it's a big long word that I can't remember," Jamie said truthfully.

"Maybe I can help you remember," Sabertooth said, holding his claws dangerously close to Jamie's face.

"Sabertooth, don't do that," Magneto scolded him. "You don't want to scare him, now do you?"

He started heading towards the mountain with the metal door. With a wave of his hand, the door opened, and the others started to follow him inside. Sabertooth dropped Jamie on the ground, and pushed him toward the door. Apparently, he was not in the mood to carry a struggling pre-teen any more.

Inside was a huge space, all made of metal, with machines covering the entire floor space. Jamie had never seen so many machines in his life. He didn't recognize any, but really, he never got the chance to wander through secret labs, so he wasn't too surprised.

Sabertooth shoved him past the machines, down a set of stairs towards the back of the room. Pyro had followed them, flicking his lighter on and off, but the others stayed up.

Finally, they reached the end of a corridor, where there were three plain cells, with a bed, a toilet, and a sink. Sabertooth unlocked the first cell, opened the door, and shoved Jamie in.

"Hey, don't I even get my one phone call?" Jamie asked sarcastically as Sabertooth walked away.

"One phone call…? What are you talking about?" Pyro asked. Suddenly it dawned on him. "Oh! One phone call! I get it! Hah, that's funny! Wow kid, you're okay after all. Much better than any of the blokes Mags got stuck here now. Man, none of them can take a joke. I burned Remy's clothes a couple days ago, and he flipped! So, where you from kid?" He asked, leaning against the wall.

Jamie stared at him for a couple of seconds. He had heard that Pyro was not exactly sane, but this was really weird. "I'm from the institute," he told Pyro.

"Institute? Nah, that's where the nuts go, believe me, I know," Pyro told him with a laugh. "No, you're from Xavier's place. Magneto said he's got big plans for you. Of course, once he gets into his whole 'mutants will take over the world' speech, I kind of blank out. I mean I've got it all memorized."

He stood up straight, and mimicked in the deepest voice he could, "'mutants will take over the world from these pathetic Homo sapiens, we will not accept failure, and we will defeat Charles's X-men. We are the future,'" he finished with a punch in the air.

Jamie laughed, he couldn't help it. From what he had heard, that was a pretty good example of what Magneto said.

"Really, as long as I can burn something, I'm happy, I don't care who wins this war Mags keeps telling us about," Pyro continued, back to slouching against the wall. "So, what's up with you?" Jamie had a feeling he was in for an interesting night.

Back at the Mansion, the X-men were looking for any clue they could find to see where Magneto had taken Jamie. They had searched Jamie's room, and the area where they had fought Mystique, Pyro, and Sabertooth, but all they found was some sand.

Hank had taken it down to his lab, but doubted he could find anything out until morning.

Meanwhile, the new recruits had given up looking for clues, and were camped out in the room Ray and Roberto shared.

"So he's really gone, isn't he?" Amara asked. "I mean, he's not just hiding somewhere."

"Well, he's been gone for seven hours, I doubt he went out for milk," Ray said sarcastically.

"Where do you think he is?" Jubilee asked, sitting next to Bobby on his bed.

"Who knows," Bobby said, "with Magneto, he could be in outer space for all we know."

"What do you bet he rebuilt Asteroid M?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, Magneto doesn't seem like the creative type," Roberto said, "he probably reuses all his ideas."

"And he probably doesn't even make them up," Rahne said, "He's probably got a ton of people he pays to make up plans for him."

The recruits all laughed, and discussed how Magneto had ghostwriters for his evil schemes, but Tabitha just sat in a chair they had dragged up from the library.

She didn't hate Jamie, but that's probably what every one else thought. That's definitely what everyone else thought. Then again, she didn't try to make friends. She wasn't good at it; she was used to moving to often to keep the few friends she made.

But Jamie was missing, kidnapped by their worst enemies. It didn't seem fair. Jamie was the youngest, the one who really couldn't protect himself, just like Todd. Tabitha suddenly got a flashback of when she was still with the Brotherhood. She missed them, in a way, she connected to them better than she would ever connect to the X-men, but Mystique would never let them take her back, so she was stuck here.

But Jamie was the youngest, and knowing the Professor and Hank, they would take forever analyzing the facts, and by then it could be too late. Tabitha had to do something. Not only to prove that she didn't hate Jamie, but to save him. But it was too big of a job for just her. Her powers were useless tracking wise. And if, by some odd chance, she was able to find Magneto's lair, she wouldn't be able to defeat all the Brotherhood.

"Hey, guys," she butted into the conversation. "What do you think about going to find Jamie ourselves?"

The recruits stared at her like she was crazy. Then they burst out laughing.

"Please, Tabitha," Bobby said. "Even if we were able to get past the professor, and Logan, and Hank and Storm, how are we supposed to find Magneto, and defeat them?"

"Yeah Tabitha, Magneto flew off, there's not even a scent to follow," Rahne said.

"I'm serious you guys," Tabitha told them, "Xavier's too busy in Cerebro to pay attention to us, and Logan and the others are downstairs in the lab, they won't know until we're gone."

"What about the older X-men?" Ray asked. "Kitty and Kurt might let us slide, but Scott and Jean would never let us go."

"So we leave a few people behind, they cover for us, and we bring Jamie home safely," Tabby said.

"Since when are you so interested in the shrimp's welfare?" Ray asked suspiciously.

"Since we can finally prove we can be on the real X-team," Tabby lied quickly. She didn't want anyone to know she really cared about Jamie. It would trash her 'tough girl' image.

Bobby's eyes lit up at Tabby's comment. It was his dream to be on the real team. This was his chance. He immediately took over, letting Tabby relax, sit back, and watch her plan go into action.

"Okay, we'll need at least two people to stay here," he said. He looked around the room. "Amara, you're one of them."

"What! That's not fair!" Amara protested.

"We know Pyro's there, he can probably control you, and we don't want that," Bobby explained. "And…" he surveyed the room again, "Rahne, we'll need your tracking senses, Sam, Roberto, we'll need to get places fast, Ray, we'll need you if we need to blow up something…Jubilee, looks like you're it."

"What! What about Tabby?" Jubilee asked.

"It was her idea," Bobby said, "and I'm the leader. Sorry Jubes." He turned to the remaining recruits. "Okay men…" to which Rahne coughed, "and women, we've got a big mission here. Bigger than us, than Logan, bigger than Blob. We've got ourselves a teammate to save. Either we come back with Jamie, or we don't come back at all!" He shoved his fist in the air, expecting a round of applause for his stirring speech, but the other recruits just rolled their eyes and left the room.

"Nice speech, popsicle," Tabby smirked as she left the room. "See you in the morning, we'll leave tomorrow." Even if the plan did fail, Bobby was so sure it was his plan by now, he'd get all the blame. It was perfect.

**Hmmm… (Scratches self on head) when this started out, Jamie wasn't supposed to get kidnapped until the next chapter, and then he was supposed to escape by himself…which must mean... Ahh! My fingers have been taken over by some demon writer from another dimension…oh, or, my little sister says it's because I have no idea where this story is going now. Why does Magneto needs Jamie? Will the recruits find him? Will this story have an end? I'll tell you as soon as I make something up. R&R please!**


	10. Recruits to the rescue!

**Hey everybody! Well, I'm going to keep this short, because I get to do a few shout-outs! Yes! You wouldn't believe how excited I am about this. I really need to get out more. Anyways, for all of you who reviewed: thank you! Don't forget to review this chapter!**

**Idypebsaby- you know, I think you're the only one who mentioned that Jamie doesn't have his medicine. You've figured out the plot. I congratulate you. Hah, I didn't even know congratulate was a word.**

**Animejunkie1008- my little sister likes your review and she says it was her idea to write it about her, but it wasn't. Thanks for your review.**

**Agent-G- ah, yes, I am over being grounded over whatever it was before, I think my parents forgot about that one, but they're on this 'chores' kick, so I've been doing the wildest arrange of chores, so the updates are still going to be slow.**

**Dru- ah, yes, the great Pirate Kit, one of my favorite authors. Yes, I have read 'the Private life of Jamie Madrox', more times than you would believe actually. But, since I was not blessed with her sense of humor, my kidnapping will actually have to be boring old regular kidnappings. Alas, why couldn't I have been blessed with humor instead of being cute? Lol. **

**TheDreamerLady- yes, I think I do have control of my fingers again, some of what happened here was a bit surprising to me, but I think most of it had planned before.**

**And now, since I've finished my incredibly fun shout outs, on with the story!**

Jamie and Pyro had been talking for a while now. It had been a little bit more than a day. Every once in a while, Pyro would leave to get them food, and give Jamie a chance to go to the bathroom in private. They slept for a few hours, but Jamie didn't feel safe enough to sleep soundly.

It was boring, but, since Jamie didn't have anything better to do, and Pyro got bored by himself, they made do. Jamie was starting to look at Pyro as a friend, instead of a warden like he originally thought. When they ran out of things to talk about, Pyro would show off his fire tricks, which led to more interesting conversations about their powers.

"I love my fire an all," Pyro was saying, "but I think I want Baldy's powers. After all the things I've done, it'd be nice to just make everyone forget all the stuff that happened. Yeah, that would definitely be nice." He leaned back in his chair, dreaming of being able to take over people's minds.

"That powers nice," Jamie said, "but I'd want Bobby's powers. I mean, not only does the ice part rock, but, he can say all the cool sayings and it works."

"What?" Pyro asked.

"You know, like, he can say 'freeze' and they stop, or something like, 'you need a cooling off period, and wham," he jumped up, holding his hand out, obviously trying to get some ice to come out. He fell back in his chair, exhausted.

He had been feeling tired for a few hours now, and he was starting to get a headache, he was out of his medicine.

"Hey, Pyro, why does Magneto want me?" he asked.

"I think he wants to put you in the machine in the back room," Pyro said, absently clicking his lighter on and off. "You know, the one that makes you fully evolved, he figures he can have a whole army, and when you're an adult, and you should be able to control your copies."

"So he wants a mind-controlled army?" Jamie asked, to which Pyro nodded. Jamie had heard about Magneto's machine on asteroid M, but he didn't know he had made a new one. His eyes started to droop, he was so tired, he didn't really care anymore.

"What's wrong mate?" Pyro asked, noticing how tired Jamie looked. As if in answer, the IV pack Jamie had to wear started beeping. "What's that?" Pyro asked.

"It's my medicine, I have to change it," Jamie explained.

"But we don't have any doctors," Pyro said.

"I think I can do it myself, but I don't have any of it with me," Jamie said, trying to think of someway to get his medicine. "Can I talk to Xavier through this thing, like, telekinetically?" He asked Pyro.

"No," Pyro said, "Mags has the same stuff in the base has he does in his helmet, Xavier's locked out of here."

Jamie was starting to feel sick, his head was hurting, and he was really cold. His medicine should have been changed the day before, and he was already starting to feel the effects of the withdrawal.

Pyro looked scared; sure, he had seen lots of people die, but never little kids, especially one who he had talked to for a day and a half. He ran to a cupboard, and got out a blanket, then opened up Jamie's cell.

Jamie's first thought was, 'I can escape now', but his head was hurting to bad to want to move.

Pyro wrapped the blanket around him, and put a hand to his forehead. "Sheesh, you're burning up! Why are you so cold?" He quickly ripped the blanket off of the shivering Jamie. He started pacing around the tiny cell, muttering to himself. "Why is he cold? I don't get it, you're supposed to put a blanket on, that's what my mum did. Think, think, think…" He said, pounding his head, impersonating Winnie the Pooh when he was faced with a problem.

It looked like a light bulb went on in his head. "Of course!" he yelled. "My mum, girls always know how to handle sick kids."

He ran to the bottom of the stairs, leading to the main room. "Mystique! Get down here!" After yelling for a few seconds, Mystique finally came down, with Magneto and Gambit accompanying her.

"What is it?" she asked Pyro, looking thoroughly upset that her plans had been disrupted.

"It's the kid, he's burning up, but he's shivering," Pyro said.

Mystique looked scornfully in at the cell, where Jamie was shivering, beads of sweat coming down his forehead. She silently cursed, then went into the cell. She put a hand on Jamie's forehead, quickly taking it off when she felt how hot he was.

"Get him some ice, or an ice pack or something," she ordered Gambit, to which he quickly complied.

"What's wrong with him?" Magneto asked.

Mystique studied Jamie for a few seconds, her eyes trailing toward his waist, where his IV pack was. She picked it up, and the machine beeped again, asking for more medicine.

"It's his medicine, it's gone," she told Magneto.

"Well, put some more in," he said, and started to walk out.

She rolled her eyes. "If we knew what kind of medicine he needed, or if we had it here, we might be able to, but we're not even sure how to get it in."

"I think I know how," Jamie said, holding his head, trying to think past the fever. He didn't understand, he shouldn't be so sick yet; he should have a couple more hours before he was feeling this bad, the doctor had told him so.

Mystique looked at him scornfully. "You don't happen to know what kind of medicine you need, do you."

"No," Jamie said.

"Figures," she mumbled under her breath.

"Gambit's got ice," Gambit came in, holding a bag of ice.

Mystique grabbed it from him, holding it to Jamie's forehead. She sat there, thinking for a couple of seconds. "Remy," she said, "do you know how to break into medical files?"

Remy laughed. "Remy can break into anything."

"Get Jamie's medical file, find out the medication he's on, where to get it, and how to change it." Remy started to walk out. "Oh, yes," she called after him, "find out what he has."

Magneto stood in the doorway of the cell, feeling kind of useless. He wasn't used to Mystique giving orders, instead of him. Unfortunately, he had no clue when it came to kids.

"Don't just stand there," Mystique snapped at him. "Take him to the infirmary."

"We have an infirmary?" he asked, wondering when that got laid in the plans.

"Yes, just take him there, we need to get him out of here, it's too…well, I don't know, but we should get him up to where there's a bed."

Pyro watched in fascination as Magneto used his powers to take the shivering Jamie to the infirmary. He knew he should help somehow, but he didn't have a clue about what to do, and decided it would be best to stay out of the way, and went to go bug Sabertooth.

Mystique was having trouble trying to think of what to do for Jamie. He was fine just a few hours ago; she didn't understand how he could have gotten so sick so quickly. There was also the fact that she didn't have any motherly instinct to speak of. She never really had to worry about sick kids, she only had Kurt for a little bit, and the Brotherhood was too old for her to worry about. She didn't know what to do.

Fortunately, twenty minutes after they got Jamie to the infirmary, Gambit came in. He handed Mystique a piece of paper, with all the information she had asked for. He quickly left the room, before she could ask anything else from him.

Mystique studied the paper. "Shoot," she said, "I haven't even heard of this disease, let alone the medicine, where are we going to get it?" she asked Magneto.

"We've got bigger things to worry about;" Remy came in. "Somebody just broke in here."

Flashback: yesterday.

The new recruits were all ready for their rescue mission. They didn't know how long they would be gone, or even where they were going, so they packed a lot of money and food. Tabby had also sneaked down to the infirmary, and gotten the medicine Jamie needed. Jubilee and Amara were upset that they were left behind, but promised to keep the others off their tails as long as they could.

They decided to bring the X-van, mainly because it was big enough to fit all of them, and none of them were crazy enough to mess with Scott's car- again.

Tabitha sat in the passenger seat, Bobby was driving, Sam and Ray were in the middle, and Rahne and Roberto were in the back. Tabby was telling Bobby were to go, because she was really the only person who knew how to get to where they were going…the Brotherhood house.

When Tabitha knocked on the door, Todd opened it, and tried to shut it again, but Tabby stopped it with her foot.

"Sorry Toad," she said, opening up the door, and grabbing Todd by the neck, her plasma bombs forming in her hand. "We need some directions, and you're going to give it to us."

"No way, yo," he said, struggling to get free, "give me one good reason why I should help you." Tabitha threw one of her bombs in the living room, blowing up the couch. Todd stared in horror for a second. "Yeah, I guess that's a good reason."

"It had better be," Tabitha said.

"Okay, he said, to turn left here," Tabby was reading off the directions Todd had given her. "And the entrance should be a big metal door here…" she paused, looking at enormous Cliffside, with no door in sight. They had driven most of the day yesterday, only stopping to sleep, and a lot of that day. Most of it was off road, driving along the beach side. "The little Toad, he gave us the wrong directions!"

The others started getting out of the car anyways, if only just to stretch. They had been driving too long that day, it was already getting dark.

"I thought he gave in to easily," Ray said.

Rahne had transformed into her wolf form, and was sniffing the floor around the rocky cliffs.

"What is it, Wolfsbane?" Bobby asked.

She ignored him, and kept sniffing the sand. She changed form into her human state. "I've got Jamie's scent! It starts right here," she pointed to where the orb had opened up for Jamie yesterday, "and it ends right here," she pointed to what looked like ordinary rocks.

"So, do you think Magneto's door is hidden," Sam asked.

"Well, not for long, everybody aim at it," Bobby commanded. They all aimed their powers at the wall. It was loud, but once Sam crashed into it, they had a clear entrance in.

"X-men, let's move," Bobby said. Tabby stared after him a second, once everyone else left. "What?" he asked.

"I never thought I'd say this, but Cyclops does that better than you," she said, running off after the others.

Bobby ran after her. "This isn't the right time to be making jokes," he said when he caught up with her.

"Who was joking?" she asked.

They were in a huge room, with electronics all around. Not knowing what they were, Ray did the only thing he really paid attention to in Logan's sessions- blow everything up.

As Ray was busy short-circuiting the electronics, Rahne and the others were looking for Jamie. She was in half-wolf form, so she could still talk.

"I smell him going that way," she growled, "but it stops down there." She pointed towards the stairs, leading to the cells.

Roberto ran down the stairs. "He isn't here anymore," he said.

"Where did he go then?" Ray asked.

"To the infirmary," Pyro said, coming up the stairs with Roberto. "He's really sick; did you bring the stuff he needs?"

Bobby went back into his normal form, puling out the bag that went in Jamie's medicine dispenser. "Take us to him," he told Pyro.

"Remy don't think it will be that easy," Remy said, coming from a doorway along with Mystique, Sabertooth, and Magneto.

"I'll have a few words with _you_ later," Magneto told Pyro, who looked like he didn't care.

"But we've got to get this medicine to Jamie," Sam said.

Magneto looked confused for a second, someone dared to defy him?

"If we don't get it to him, he'll die," Ray said, in the deepest voices he had, trying to show Magneto they meant business.

"Die?" Jamie asked, coming out from the infirmary.

"Jamie!" the others yelled, trying to run over to him, but they were blocked by Sabertooth.

"You're not going anywhere," he growled.

"No, Sabertooth," Magneto said, shocking the others. "He's no use to us dead, and even if we keep him, it'll be too expensive to get his medicine. It is a waste to keep him."

The recruits cheered, and threw Sabertooth out of the way. Bobby gave the medicine to Rahne, who helped Jamie put it in.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Mystique asked Magneto.

"I said Multiple could go, I didn't say anything about the others," he whispered to her. He thought he said it quietly, but Rahne's super sensitive hearing caught it.

She didn't say anything at first, but once she finished changing Jamie's medicine, she quietly told Bobby what was going to happen.

Bobby relayed the information to the others, who still thought they were getting out without fighting. They made Jamie sit near the wall, to keep him out of the way; he was still too weak to fight.

"X-men, attack!" Bobby yelled, glaring at Tabitha, daring her to say something, but she didn't. The new recruits scattered around the cave, causing as much destruction as they could.

Cannonball was crashing into anything he could, which included Mystique, Bobby iced Sabertooth up, but he quickly broke free, Tabitha was throwing bombs everywhere she could, and Ray was doing what he could to blow up Gambit.

After a couple minutes of fighting, it was clear that Magneto and his team was clearly outnumbered, especially since Pyro wasn't helping, and they started to run to the back, but were blocked by Roberto, who was powered up. They ran out towards the entrance, Magneto already starting to make metal orbs.

The recruits let them go, and settled for just destroying the base. Rahne dragged Jamie out of the cave, and Ray and Tabby threw as much as they could as they ran out.

Tabby threw one last huge bomb in the cave, once everyone was out. Fireworks started shooting out everywhere.

"Is this Christmas, or the fourth of July?" Sam asked.

"Hey, that's right; it's Christmas Eve, huh?" Ray asked.

Suddenly, the wind started to pick up, and sand started flying everywhere. The X-jet was flying down, full of a team of angry X-men.

"You guys are in so much trouble," Scott said once they had landed, and gotten out.

"Well, they did do a good job of defeating Magneto, and they got Jamie's medicine," Hank said, looking at Jamie, and checking his vitals.

"You all did a good job," the Professor said, "but, you are still in trouble for stealing the X-van without telling us."

The recruits groaned, but turned back to the cave for a final explosion.

"Merry Christmas, shrimp," Bobby said, wrapping an arm around Jamie.

**I got a Christmas special in! Yes! Okay, so it was only like, one line, but still, it's Christmas-y. Well, now that I think about it, this could be a good end to the story. I hate long stories, so it can't be to long, but I might have one more wrap up chapter. Review and tell me what you think, please!**


	11. The end

**Hey everybody! Well, this is the quickest update in a while, but it's the last one, so it's okay. I know that it's really short, but I think I got everything I wanted in there. So, no shout-outs this time, but I'd like to thank: SickmindedSucker, xmengirlzrule, and Idypebsaby for reviewing every chapter…I think, I lost count really. Oh yes, and to guess who/ justjo438 for the great ideas, and NightCrawler28 for still reviewing even after I broke up with him, sorry, just had to put that in. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. R&R please! **

One month later….

"Okay, Jamie, I think you're all set," Hank said as he removed the pick-line. "You'll still need to be careful with it, no horseplay for a couple of weeks, but I think you're set and ready to go. That means no playing outside, in fact, maybe you should be house bound for a couple of days, but besides that, you're good to go."

Jamie jumped up from the bed in the infirmary, and ran out, saying a quick goodbye to Hank on the way.

"In one ear and out the other…." Hank sighed, returning to his work.

"Guys, guys! Look, I'm all better now!" Jamie said enthusiastically to the new recruits. "Can we play catch now, like you promised?" He asked Bobby. He was house-bound for almost seven months, and was definitely ready to get out of there.

Bobby rolled his eyes. Jamie might get away with ignoring Hank, but Logan had given him personal instructions to not do anything that might hurt his arm, and he wasn't about to go behind his back.

"Shrimp, didn't Mr. McCoy tell you not to do anything for a bit?" Bobby asked him.

Jamie glared; he was on to his plot. "No," he lied, "he said it was fine for me to play."

"Nice try, Jamie," Jubilee said. "But how about we all just go out for an ice cream cone instead."

Jamie scrunched up his face, in deep concentration. He could sit there and argue until they gave in, or he could take the easy way out and just settle for an ice cream cone.

"This is taking longer than I thought it would," Ray whispered to Sam.

"Fine," Jamie said, "ice cream it is than."

"Hey," Tabby said, entering the room. "Did I hear someone say ice cream? Let's go!" She grabbed Jamie's hand, and they all walked out together.

Things had gotten a lot better for them since the fight with Magneto. Even after Scott gave them a lecture, they still couldn't help but feel proud that they defeated Magneto, destroyed his base, and saved Jamie all in one day.

The Professor said that someday soon, they would be official X-men, and was giving them more challenging tasks. Bobby was already getting his acceptance speech ready for when he was a real X-man.

Magneto had disappeared for a while, Jamie still talked to Pyro every once in a while, who was taking a tour of the city, and everywhere that fire could be found, but besides him, all of Magneto's Acolytes had vanished.

And as for Jamie and the other new recruits, they had become much closer. Every once in a while, someone would pick on Jamie, or forget to invite him somewhere, but besides that, things were definitely better. He was still the baby, but if it meant free ice cream, it was okay by him.

"Jamie! What are you doing out there?" Logan yelled from the doorway at the new recruits who were walking to the mall. "You know you're not supposed to leave the house!"

"Shall we run?" Bobby asked Tabby.

"Nah, I say we steal Scott's car, faster and cooler."

And then they were off, on another adventure, even if it was just trying to escape the wrath of an angry teacher with claws.

But for the shrimp, or the baby of the institute, or the Multiple Man, nothing could have been better.


End file.
